Quark has new product, may hire 500

Quark Inc., a maker of publishing software, is launching a free online product it expects to create hundreds of jobs at its Denver headquarters.

The company scheduled an announcement for Thursday, Nov. 19 to unveil a free online design and publishing tool, called Quark Promote, designed to make it easy for business people with “zero design knowledge” to create marketing material.

“With over 1 million small businesses online every month looking for this type of service, Quark Promote has the potential to be Quark’s most profitable line of business yet,” the company said in a news release.

Quark projects adding as many as 500 job jobs in Denver in three to five years, based on its expected growth of Quark Promote. The company had about 135 employees at its downtown headquarters as of early 2009, just under one-third of its global work force.

The Nov. 19 event will include Quark CEO Ray Schiavone; Kelly Brough, CEO of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce; Bernie Buescher, Colorado’s secretary of state; and State Rep. Joel Judd, D-Denver.

Quark, started by Denver entrepreneur Tim Gill in the early 1980s, helped revolutionize page layout for newspapers and magazines, replacing manual paste-up and complex page-building computer systems with cheaper desktop publishing tools.

Source: Denver Business Journal - by Greg Avery