<But the day they get off their butts and buy Quark, it should turn things around.>
Wow, if Corel ever bought Quark I'd say that would indeed give the stock a boost. Quark is without a doubt, the number one page layout program in the graphic design community.
Amongst graphic designers there are 3 types of programs that are "must have/must know":
1) page layout--Quark is by far the leader,
2) Illustration program--Adobe Illustrator the leader in this one, and
3) A photo manipulative program--Adobe Photoshop the leader here.
If Adobe bought Quark they'd have a sure corner on the graphic design market. However Adobe bought Aldus PageMaker a few years back and although PageMaker is not number one amongst designers I'd say it certainly hold's the #2 spot, and therefore Adobe purchasing Quark seems unlikely. Corel's drawing program, CorelDraw, is well known, but not as well established as Illustrator and in my opinion, what they need to do to increase market share in this area is to hit the design graduates right out the door. Very few Adobe Illustrator users are going to switch even if you gave them CorelDraw for free. People tend to stick with what they have especially with the multitude of key commands and other intricacies that become second nature after years of use.
Now, if Corel were to buy Quark, and Quark is already the standard in the industry and thus typically the program endorsed by the colleges, Corel could bundle the two programs in a college-student targeted promotion. As it stands now, I don't see Corel's sales increasing significantly anytime in the near future. |
