The Cole Papers, More_Digital, April 1996

Gill speaks

DENVER -- In a Digital '96 keynote speech tailored to his audience, Chairman Tim Gill of hometown Quark Inc. offered his opinions and predictions of new media and implications of getting into new media, for the gathering of photographers, photo editors, educators and digital imaging suppliers.

Predicting that film use will be limited to things of an artistic nature, he quizzed his listeners on their place in the "middle of a revolution to an all-digital world."

While opining that statistics involving Internet use cannot be completely trusted, Gill went on to spew numbers illustrating the explosive growth of the 'Net, while delivering challenges to photographers.

After polling the group, he noted that a number of photographers had placed their images on the Internet, but few present had been paid for such use.

Maintaining the value of content in changing markets and the ability to sell the content will be a challenge in a world where 3 million images are available on-line. Photographers must become their own processors, editors, retouchers and publishers in the "digital media soup," he said.

The increasing integration of photography into new media can be seen in the growth of multimedia software sales, from $360 million in 1994 to a predicted $3.1 billion in 1998. Anything that grows at this rate will also produce a lot of junk.

All this new content will be delivered by new methods -- Internet, commercial on-line services, CD-ROM, kiosks, interactive TV. But before the long-term uses for the Internet develop, Gill said many people will be disappointed because of the extreme hype generated for the medium.

One reason early users may be disappointed is that data transfer rates are too low, and users will need to have access equivalent to an Isdn line in order to get transfer speeds matching CD-ROM drives.

Gill offered no specific prediction other than to note that technologies in use today probably will not be used in the future.

Asked to speculate on the future of the 'Net, he offered several schools of thought.

One is that Netscape will rule the world, a view for which he offered undisguised disdain, observing that HTML "kind of, sort of does sound; kind of, sort of does video."

The second school of thought, he said, is to work on a replacement for HTML, which he referred to as "not very interesting" and "brain dead." He sees a collection of technologies replacing HTML, even though he notes that any new format on the World-Wide Web is going to meet resistance.

A driving force for more sophistication on the Internet will be the need for larger organizations to distinguish themselves, Gill said. This need will send communicators in search of other tools to carry their message.

Other Gill observations:

"You are going to be learning a lot of things that will be useless," he warned his audience, advising that ongoing training must maintain both "bit skills" and creative skills.

The prediction that "85 percent of what you learn will eventually be useless" struck a responsive chord with a group that has experienced multiple changes in basic technology in the last two decades.

The future of Apple Computer Inc. is a subject he and his business partner disagree on, Gill said. In his judgment, Apple's Macintosh will be the dominant platform in publishing for the next three or four years.

He prefers programming for the Mac because of font issues and other problems remaining on the Windows platform. The level of support needed for the Windows platform remains much higher.

Gill said he believes the fierce loyalty of users is to the Macintosh, though, and not to Apple. Also, Gill said he is not convinced Apple's managers know how to run the company.

When quizzed for a prediction on hardware requirements, he sidestepped a direct answer, noting the requirements for multimedia change on a yearly basis. Quark XPress customers average 32 megabytes of RAM, he said.

On the status of XPosure, a competitor to Photoshop, Gill said Quark does not yet have an alpha version. This joint project with Japan's JVC Corp. is now in JVC's hands, Gill said, noting that JVC was discovering that the last 10 percent of a software project is 90 percent of the work.

Finally, Gill, whose software is a dominant player in publishing, was asked if he reads newspapers. In the interest of domestic tranquility, he said, he doesn't have a newspaper delivered to his home, or watch much television news, but he does enjoy reading smaller newspapers while on the road.

Gill admitted to a fascination with details such as reports of local traffic arrests.

-- DHH

Gill speaks

From THE COLE PAPERS, April 1996, Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved.