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eWeek is reporting that Quark will deliver only an OS X-native version of XPress when it releases the upgraded application in 2003. The publication quotes James Therrien, manager of professional services at Quark Inc., who admits that only Mac OS X and Windows versions will be released. Currently, Quark's mist recent upgrade is XPress 5.0, which runs on OS 9 only (or in Classic mode on OS X). Quark executives have previous argued that the complexity of moving XPress to OS X has necessitated a longer-than-usual development time. The other problem Quark and digital publishers face is the porting of the large number of third-party XPress plug-ins to OS X. This in itself may prevent Quark customers from moving to OS X until the tools they use for their daily work are available in native versions. Quark is not expected to release XPress 6.0 until Q2 of 2003 at the earliest. Analysis: Both Apple and Quark must hope - and think - the native XPress move will push users to upgrade both their hardware and their software. But such upgrades are not necessarily inevitable. Many Quark users will undoubtedly adopt a 'wait-and-see' attitude and look at how rapidly plug-ins go OS X before committing to Unix-based platform. A lot of print shops have long-establish classic OS set-ups which, despite their faults, work and work predictably. For many publishers and page-layout pros, the investment to switch to OS X and XPress 6.0 will be quite considerable, and this suggests there won't be any get-rich-quick returns for Apple when XPress X hits the shelves.
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