No theme at Macworld Expo -- just a lot of products, suppliers

Finding a theme for this year's Macworld Expo in San Francisco was like finding a theme fish for the Pacific Ocean.

So, better to concentrate on the new species, and point out that the big fish -- Quark Inc. -- was notable for its absence from Moscone Center for the second consecutive year. Quark didn't seem to be missed by the 60,000-plus who attended the Jan. 4-7 festival, which seemed a celebration of the Macintosh's successful 1994 push for greater speed and power.

With the highly successful Power Mac line of RISC-based processors, it was indeed a banner year for the Macintosh and its parent company, Apple. Just as the Pacific Ocean covers every inch of shoreline, so Apple tries to cover every base in the ever-changing world of computer marketing. Compatibility? Connectivity? Windows? Electronic publishing, high-end or low? Multimedia? Music? Games? CD-ROM? Servers? Voice recognition?

All were at the Expo. More than 500 exhibitors had plenty to show or sell, or both. With that many suppliers, Quark was conspicuous by its absence, but not overly so. In the world of high-end electronic publishing, the company is becoming the Microsoft of this niche. Although a couple of potential competitors were in evidence, and quasi-contenders PageMaker and long-document king Frame were in attendance, Quark for Windows and the Mac is pretty much the 800-pound gorilla in the high-end neck of the jungle.

Between Quark XPress and Adobe Photoshop, it's the rare newspaper today that's not using one or the other -- and now no Mac is required, since there are Windows versions of both programs.

So what is it with Denver's Quark?

Last year, company officials said the time it takes to prepare for trade shows is so great that Quark would commit to only a few. "We find shows like Seybold and NEXPO more beneficial for us and for our customers," one marketing executive said.

Tim Gill, company founder and vice president, said in response to a similar question, "I can only justify a certain number of shows each year. They're always a big drain, more in terms of personnel and loss of forward momentum than money."

Quark's absence from Macworld does accurately reflect its changing position in the marketplace. With the advent of Quark products for Windows, Quark publishing is not just for Macs anymore. With another platform to support, and the corporate trend in the '90s to downsize/rightsize, Quark has decided it is an established company, and can better reach the higher end users at other, more focused shows.

So back to focus on Macworld Expo, San Francisco 1995 -- probably the hardest Expo in all my 11 to get a handle on. It didn't help that exhibit-goers went two days without printed programs because of transshipment difficulties from the printer ("Lost in a snowstorm in Nebraska" was the way it was put in the press room).

The programs did arrive for use during the last two days, and I at least walked past every booth in the vast expanse of Moscone Center, North and South sections. My travels took me past products old (they existed two years ago), new, borrowed (someone else thought of it first), but no Big Blue.

Many companies were showing upgrades they had recently begun shipping: Adobe Photoshop 3.0, ClarisWorks 3.0, Word Perfect 3.1, Microsoft Word 6.0 (don't rush out to get this one -- it rhymes with slow) and Texas-based Motorola.

A rundown of selected items, old and new: