Publishing software providers are moving quickly to offer new digital publishing tools, and two of the biggest names — Adobe and Quark — recently announced new releases.

Adobe Systems Inc. yesterday announced the new Creative Suite 5.5 product line, enabling designers and developers to target popular and emerging smartphone and tablet platforms. Spurred by the meteoric take-off in popularity of these platforms, this mid-cycle product release offers updates to Flash, HTML5, video and mobile app production, and digital publishing. The product is expected to be available in May.
 
In addition, Adobe is introducing a new, subscription-based approach to licensing its software. Photoshop as a stand-alone product can now be licensed for as little as $35 per month, while the extensive Master Collection will go for $129 per month.
 
This launch marks a major change to Adobe’s product release strategy for Creative Suite: the company now plans to have “milestone CS product introductions” every 24 months, with important mid-cycle "dot" releases starting with CS 5.5. For more information.

Meanwhile, Quark Inc. of Denver has announced the forthcoming release of Quark 9, with many new features for publishing to tablets through its new App Studio online service. Quark 9 will also output in the ePub format compatible with many book e-readers.

Quark is offering a free 30-day test drive, and customers who buy the current Quark 8 before April 30 can upgrade to Quark 9 for free when it is released, expected later in April. For more information.