Quark, widely known for its desktop publishing tools, announced a major change of direction for the firm and its products. It’s a most exciting announcement, the first that attempts to tackle all of the various challenges organizations face as they attempt to create, manage, publish and deliver dynamic content.

What Did Quark Announce, Exactly?
It’s called the Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution, “publishing software that combines flexible layout with automated publishing to deliver accurate, relevant, and attractive communications across multiple types of media, including print, the Web, and mobile and electronic devices.” The solution includes content creation, management, and delivery tools from both Quark and its new partners: In.vision Research Xpress Author for Microsoft Word (to provide content creators with an easy-to-use XML authoring environment) and Alfresco CMS (open source enterprise content management solution). Negotiations are in the works with an email delivery service, among others.

Out of the gates the company will target two target audiences, each with a big need for dynamic publishing: marketing communication and professional publishing firms.

Most content management solutions aim to solve the “management” problems associated with content. Seldom do they tackle challenges associated with authoring (some add a WYSIWYG XML editor, but seldom are these tools adequate for all content creators in an enterprise, especially non-technical writers and creators of creative materials for marketing and sales) nor content delivery (most don’t even connect to an email service provider, despite email being the number one content delivery mechanism today). And, they usually avoid the messy issues associated with process improvements altogether. The Quark Dynamic Publishing Solutions aims to change all that. And, they’re on to something.

Use Case: Marketing
Marketing professionals are one of the first target audiences for the new Quark Dynamic Publishing Solution. As most content professionals are aware, marketing communication challenges are often the same as most others in an enterprise: getting the right information to the right people at the right time in the right format and and in the right language. But, most generic processes and tools fail to address the actual needs of marketing. They are often slow and inefficient and create unnecessary go-to-market delays. Quark does a good job of explaining the challenges faced by marketers and how their new solution addresses those issues. There’s a whitepaper and an article on return on investment available for those interested in learning even more.

The partnership with In.vision Research (makers of Xpress Author for Microsoft Word) is a smart move because it doesn’t try to force everyone in the world to create content using a Quark authoring tool. Instead, it acknowledges, much like the Irish Government did, that when you want to get people to create XML content, it’s best to provide them with a familiar authoring environment and minimize the negative impacts changing authoring tools can introduce.

Learn more about dynamic publishing.