Quark, the company behind the page layout software QuarkXPress, mailed out a marketing pack to potential and current customers in March of this year. The effort seems likely to go down in history as one of the most ill-thought out campaigns in the history of technology advertising. For a company that’s product is styling images and paper, the postcards not only lack fizz but also sport downright untrue comparisons between Quark’s software and that of its leading competitor, Adobe.

What came across most clearly is that it’s not just that Adobe’s InDesign is, contrary to Quark’s claims, the better software, but that the bad attitude Quark displayed is reminiscent of the bad old days of tech attitude. When the company has to resort to bad-mouthing a stunningly brilliant competitor to score points, rather than demonstrating the strengths of their own software, something has gone badly wrong.

Quark VS InDesign: Quark’s Postcards from the Edge

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