DTP Software

Adobe PageMaker has been a steady winner in this category for

the past five years. And this year too it maintains its position. However, this

year the runner up has changed from MS Office to CorelDRAW. For a couple of

years, word processors had been brewing up as viable options for the DTP

segment, but had never managed to enter the User’s Choice Club. Last year, it

started with MS Office having managed to gather enough popularity among users to

emerge as number two in this segment, pushing CorelDRAW down to number three. It

seemed like a strong contender, as it gathered 50 points in the UPI index over a

mere 17 scored by Corel. However, this year CorelDRAW has managed to climb back

to the number two position. MS Office, which was a strong contender, has slid to

number three.

PageMaker has been retaining its title by a wide margin, ever

since it took over from Ventura in 1995. However, it’s facing immense

competition for the positions below. Ventura could only remain in the rolls

until 1998 and that too at number three. It finally gave way to MS Office.

With each new version, PageMaker has been bringing in new

features that make it even more

powerful. Meanwhile Word’s growth, and indeed MS Office’s

too, has been towards the Web. Since, Word has been concentrating on Web

publishing and not desktops, it’s not a big shock to see it lose its place.

CorelDRAW is a graphics program–a de facto standard for creating vector

graphics. It does have page-making capabilities as well, but the level of

control provided by PageMaker is far better.

PageMaker has a strong market presence in the South, and is

consistently spread out in the rest of the country. The current usage of

PageMaker is also the highest by a wide margin, revealing a high degree of brand

loyalty towards the product.

So who will be the winner next year? The way dark horses have

been emerging in this category, something will surely happen, even if in the

lower rankings. For example, one name called Akruti popped up in the DTP segment

this year. It couldn’t gather enough votes to enter the club, but next year

might be different.