DENVER - June 5, 2001 - Quark Inc. announced its increased commitment to the catalog and direct marketing industries today. Quark, an industry-leading vendor of publishing software, now offers products designed to help businesses analyze, plan, and deploy catalogs. "Quark has made a considerable investment in technologies for the catalog and direct marketing industries," said Juergen Kurz, vice president of product management at Quark. "We're helping our customers in those industries become more profitable by building a bridge between their publishing and business processes. Quark customers have always realized tremendous efficiencies. We plan to extend those benefits beyond the production department." "Quark understands that competition to acquire and retain customers is fierce," said Linda Chase, director of product management for Quark business applications. "Catalogers need to make informed merchandise decisions, but can't do so efficiently without the tools to analyze their data and manage their content. Quark technology will let them streamline their operations and reduce the cost of marketing in multiple media." Quark technology for catalogers and direct marketers includes systems for merchandise analysis, content management, and database publishing. Quark Merchandise Manager Quark Merchandise Manager is decision support software for catalog and direct marketing professionals who are dissatisfied with the costly and time-consuming manual processes involved in gathering and analyzing promotion data. It combines data from a company's existing order management system with product images and marketing data to provide a single point of access for analyzing and creating promotions. Quark Digital Media System Quark Digital Media System (QuarkDMS) is a powerful content management system that lets customers manage a virtually unlimited number of text files, images, and other digital resources. It combines the speed and reliability of an Oracle8 database with a scalable three-tier architecture capable of serving hundreds of concurrent users. The powerful XTensions interface allows developers to extend functionality and integrate QuarkDMS with business systems such as e-commerce, inventory, or accounting. Quark eStage Quark eStage is an enterprise database publishing system that aggregates and organizes data from multiple data sources and automates page production. It maintains dynamic, bi-directional links between documents and data sources, so catalogers can edit data anywhere in their workflow. Quark eStage will integrate with Quark Merchandise Manager to help catalogers streamline their strategy-to-promotion process. Availability QuarkDMS and Quark Merchandise Manager can be purchased from the authorized system integrators listed on the Quark Web site at www.quark.com/products/quarkdms/purchase/dms.html. Quark plans to release Quark eStage later this year. System integrators who are interested in learning more about these products should contact Quark by sending an e-mail to [email protected].