Adobe Systems Inc has lifted the veil on its new page layout technology, code-named K2 and nicknamed the Quark killer. (CI No 3,390). K2’s features, especially its graphics and text manipulation capabilities, drew gasps from the assembled publishing professionals. Since Quark announced plans to acquire Adobe last week (CI No 3,484), relations between the longtime desktop publishing software rivals are at their frostiest ever. Adobe took the opportunity of Apple interim CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote at SeyboldSF, the desktop publishing highlight of the year, to demo K2 running on Apple’s new Carbon application programming interface. Compatibility with this API guarantees that an application will run on the forthcoming MacOS X, so as well as trying to intimidate Quark, Adobe was reaffirming its long-abandoned commitment to developing software for the Macintosh platform.
