The CEO of the dominant page layout software company has suddenly parted ways with his employer after a two-year reign. Kamar Aulakh was a 10-year Quark veteran and former VP of R&D:
“… effective immediately, Kamar Aulakh is no longer with the company,” read a statement. Aulakh became Quark’s president in 2003 and ultimately succeeded Quark’s mercurial CEO Fred Ebrahimi in February 2004. [Macworld]Hailing from Aulakh village in Gurdaspur district in Punjab, he is a product of Punjab Engineering College (PEC) here. Remembering his school days in Shimla, he says with a sense of pride, “I went to Bishop Cotton School, which helped me develop strong foundation. After doing graduation in mechanical engineering from PEC in 1974, I went to the USA where I did Masters in Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois and MBA from Indiana University…” Based in Switzerland, he visits India and Denver regularly. [Chandigarh Tribune]
The unexplained departure could have to do with declining sales. Quark is privately held and doesn’t disclose its financials, but it’s struggled in its move from Mac to Windows. It could be a clash with the emotional chairman, Farhad ‘Fred’ Ebrahimi. Or it could be something else entirely.
QuarkXpress is the #1 page layout program by market share. Aulakh put Quark’s 1,300-person development center in Mohali, a Chandigarh suburb where Dell has also invested. That center is Quark’s main campus, larger than its Denver campus in headcount:
… along with the Chairman, Mr Fred Ebrahimi, a team from the company visited Bangalore, Noida, Gurgaon, Delhi and Hyderabad. Since I knew the city, I convinced him to visit Chandigarh as well. To my surprise, he was bowled over by the planned location and cosmopolitan lifestyle of the city and decided to opt for this location. [Chandigarh Tribune]In India, Ebrahimi will soon start building a dream city in Punjab, spread over 5,000 acres, bringing state-of-the-art construction technology to the country. Quark City, will boast India’s biggest shopping mall, a host of technology campuses ranging from IT to bio-tech and the works, and housing apartments each worth a crore. To make things happen, the Punjab government has eased archaic building restrictions. It also plans to give the SEZ status to Quark City. [Economic Times]
By choosing Chandigarh rather than Bangalore or Hyderabad, Quark wanted to avoid competition in recruiting. Microsoft supposedy chose Washington for the same reason. The poaching in Bangalore is severe now, I’ve heard anecdotes about 30% annual employee turnover and people leaving for offers at 2x their previous salaries. In fact, it sounds like just like the Internet bubble in Silicon Valley.
He located the centre in the North so that we can set ourselves apart from other companies… [Chandigarh Tribune]
Aulakh also pushed for QuarkXpress Mudra, a version for South Asian languages:
… includes additional features for publishing in the following languages: Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Nepali… QuarkXPress Mudra includes a localized user interface and lets you check spelling and hyphenate text in all the supported languages. [Quark]
Ebrahimi has an interesting affinity for Punjab:
So, what gets Fred to India? To Punjab, I ask. Why not Iran? That’s when his eyes well up. Between ‘74 and ‘78, Farhad helped set up a college of computer applications in Iran. Came the ‘79 Islamic revolution, and bang, the mullahs blew up the campus. They put several of his cousins to death, and his father, influential in the Shah’s government, died soon from a heart attack. Farhad left Iran for good though his mother still lives in Tehran…“As a person, I feel alienated from both sides. As an American, I feel we are becoming isolationist. As a Middle Easterner, I don’t think we have done enough for the world to see us as anything other than a bunch of terrorists. Americans are better than most other nations in accepting someone from abroad. But they never accept you 100%. Punjab feels almost like Iran.” [Economic Times]
Ebrahimi bought out Tim Gill, Quark’s founder and one of only two openly gay people on Forbes’ ‘97 rich list. Quark’s main rival, Adobe Systems, also has at least one high-profile desi executive, president and COO Shantanu Narayan.
