Talk Back to Quark: The Scoop on Mobile Licensing
In my article on the Quark Summit in Breckenridge, I reported that Quark announced it was changing its mobile licensing policy to allow customers to install QuarkXPress on two machines — due in no small part to the emails you sent into this site decrying the old policy of charging for the privilege.
Within milliseconds of the article being published I received the following email from Pat, a reader:
“I read your article regarding the Quark Summit. I, for one, am glad to see Quark making some type of effort and realize they are not the only ‘great’ game in town anymore. Since going to OSX, I have abandoned Quark in favor of InDesign. While it does the job, it’s just not, well, Quark.
“I recently took advantage of an offer from Quark to upgrade to 6.1 at a fairly reasonable price. However, I still have to pay for my Powerbook to also use the software. While I understand their reasoning, it stinks. So I still mainly use InDesign.
“I was intrigued with your mentioning that Quark will begin to allow for a ‘free’ mobile license along side my full purchase. Do you have a time window on this? Did they say anything on when to expect it, or more importantly, how to go about it? Thanks again for a refreshing article on Quark’s new direction. Let’s just hope they stick with it!”
After reading this e-mail I realized I didn’t know the details of how the new mobile licensing policy would work either, but I hoped it wouldn’t be complicated. In the past, Quark had been fairly heavy-handed concerning anything to do with licensing and activation.
I asked Glen Turpin, Quark’s hard-working Director of Communications, to respond to Pat’s questions:
“The technical details are unimportant, but Craig is right in that the new policy is scheduled to go into effect on July 1st, and that you should be able to install and activate your software on a second computer without having to jump through any hoops.
“I hope this will encourage you to give QuarkXPress a second look. There’s a lot of cool technology in the pipeline. We think it’s going to add great value to the software. QuarkXClusive, for variable data publishing, is available now, and QuarkVista, an image manipulation product, will be available later this year, both at no charge.
“Let me know if you have further questions.”
Apparently Pat did have follow-up questions — he still seems unsure that this is really going to be simple.:
“Hi Glen, thanks for the info. Can you tell me ‘how’ this will happen? If I’m understanding correctly, with the way things work now, my second computer cannot have my copy of Quark running. Unless in demo mode. Will an update be sent out (perhaps in 6.2)? Or will customers be notified in some way? I look forward to this, and plan on making Quark my main desktop app for publishing.”
Glen replies saying that Quark really, really means it, and its going to be simple to do:
“Patrick, the plan is that you won’t have to do anything special at all.
You’ll install QuarkXPress 6 on your second computer and it’ll just work. No upgrades, no phone calls, no extra steps. It all works on the back end with our servers. That’s why there’s still a delay before we roll out the program. We need to complete the server upgrade, test it appropriately, and so on. Thanks for your continued support of Quark.”
Indeed, just last week Quark formally announced its new activation policy. Now you should be able to simply install XPress on a second computer with no fuss or bother.
I look forward to hearing reports from you as to whether mobile licensing really does work as advertised.
You can talk back to Quark and maybe get your Quark related problems solved as well by e-mailing Craig at qu***@*********ro.com.
Read more by Craig Cline.
This article was last modified on January 11, 2022
This article was first published on July 13, 2004
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Adobe has always offered license to install software on more than one computer as long as the software is not run concurrently and it is used by the only one registered user. In the world of page layout software, Quark XPress licensing is definitely the oddity.
I understand why people were upset that you could only install Quark on a single machine, but this is not unusual in the world of software. Many apps are setup this way… try installing AutoCAD on more than one machine. By allowing the customer to install Quark on two machines, it does show some compassion, but ultimately you have to remember that with any form of software ‘activation,’ you as the customer, have no say in in terms of shelf-life. In theory, a year from now, a software maker can make your software usage very limited. Even though you bought it, all you bought was a license written by lawyers. If you want more control, more say over your software, try open source software. Its free (usually), and no one is standing over you when you use it. For free page layout software, try “https://www.scribus.net/” It runs on Linux for now, but other platforms are being considered.
This is good for Quark users, however, there is a better application in town now. Adobe Indesign will leave you very satisfied. If you haven’t switched now is the time. Save some cash and get a better app with Indesign.