Quark claims native first on Apple/Intel

On Tuesday, Quark announced thet QuarkXPress 7 will be the first major publishing application to run natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.

The company says that a "universal binary" version of the software that supports both architectures will be available by the end of January with a production version shipping "later this year".

The announcement coincided with the launch of a beta version of QuarkXpress 7 for both Macs and Windows PCs, which is available for free download.

In June last year Quark was rocked by the sudden resignation of chief executive Kamar Aulakh. He was replaced by Linda Chase, the senior vice-president of commerce product development who continues in her role as acting chief executive.

At the time, a company spokesman said they had hoped to find a replacement "as soon as possible".

Commenting on the new software to support Intel based Macs, Jürgen Kurz, senior vice-president of desktop products, said: "The availability of this software shows that we're serious about delivering on our commitment to become a more open and customer-focused company."

Kurz added that by using the most up to date hardware he hoped that "cutting edge creative teams will be able to work together on to make the creative process faster and even simpler".