Alongside the launch of the new software, which the company claims will automate much of the "fluff" of publishing and allow a seamless workflow leading to content output across different medium, Schiavone balanced this with a revamp of Quark as a company.

He reiterated that Quark remains "committed to the XPress franchise" and, although barely a year in the role himself, said: "We're going through a major transformation and that often means a change of people."

The new Quark is a lot more open, he said. Schiavone announced new partnerships with a range of companies, such as content management specialist Alfresco, In.Vision, PCI, Global Graphics and Lakeside Software, among others.

"No one company can do it all," he said of the need to form relationships with an ecosystem of providers.

He was also frank on customer service issues. "I have to say that at some point we lost our way," he said, adding that Quark was expanding local and global support.

Much of what is in the Dynamic Publishing System is more about digital than print. But one of the key messages was that the automation allows users to focus on their core skills.

Schiavone alluded to the fact that much of what had been accomplished thus far has been more about "computerised publishing" without reducing the manual tasks involved.

The Dynamic Publishing System is Quark's next step towards what was described as a "lights out" scenario, where content repurposing for different media happens automatically.

Key to this is the way content is managed and, rather than a centrally stored file, the Dynamic Publishing System stores content components centrally, so that any changes are iterated across various media products.

The leanness of such an operation means publishing houses are able to be more competitive with fewer people, claimed Quark, allowing publishers to reach more people more easily.

Frost & Sullivan analyst Aimee M Roberts said that she expects the market for dynamic publishing to grow more than 20% annually with the software market for this worth an estimated $1.2bn (£593m) by 2013, indicating a potential increase in publishing activity in the future.