Quark launched Quark Brand Manager, a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution designed to allow distributed sales and marketing teams to create, customise, and deliver brand-compliant marketing material on-demand. Quark Brand Manager runs natively on the Microsoft Azure platform.
The Windows Azure Platform is a Microsoft cloud platform used to build, host and scale web applications through Microsoft data centers. Windows Azure Platform is classified as “platform as a service” and forms part of Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy, along with their software as a service offering, Microsoft Online Services. Most analysts agree that Microsoft Azure is a nicely performing cloud platform. Quark being one of Microsoft’s privileged partners, it makes sense they chose this platform for their SaaS solution.
Through the Windows Azure platform, Quark Brand Manager connects corporate marketing departments to the cloud, giving marketers and field staff the ability to access and collaborate on brand controlled material anytime, anywhere.
As a Cloud-based solution, Quark Brand Manager can be deployed within minutes, according to Quark. It also automates system updates without requiring IT resources, and streamlines production workflows significantly. Designers convert QuarkXPress and InDesign documents into Quark Brand Manager templates that can then be approved by marketing and customised by field teams through a simple Web interface. With Quark Brand Manager, Quark claims marketing teams are able to:
- Reduce by up to 50 percent the time it takes to create templates for brand-compliant collateral
- Reduce by up to 90 percent the time it takes field teams to deliver customized collateral to consumers
- Significantly decrease costs by eliminating the need for on-premise infrastructure
