Macromedia

Macromedia, Inc. was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems on December 3, 2005.

Macromedia was formed from the April 1992 merger of Authorware Inc. (makers of Authorware) and MacroMind–Paracomp (makers of MacroMind Director). At the time, analysts estimated the multimedia software industry to be worth $200 million, and the combined company would control 20% of the market. Tim Mott of MacroMind was named chairman and chief executive officer and Bud Colligan of Authorware became president and CEO of the new company.

Director, an interactive multimedia-authoring tool used to make presentations, animations, CD-ROMs and information kiosks, served as the company's flagship product. Director was used in the creation of many multimedia projects, training programs and presentations for American Airlines, AT&T, and Kellogg's, and even Hollywood films like Jurassic Park and The Firm. Authorware was Macromedia's principal product in the interactive learning market.

By 1993, Macromedia was considered the largest supplier of multimedia development tools. The increased demand in CD-ROM players and multimedia experiences helped Macromedia turn a profit. Analysts estimated that Macromedia had 1992 revenues of about $30 million.

As the Internet moved from a university research medium to a commercial network, Macromedia began working to web-enable its existing tools and develop new products. In 1995, it introduced Shockwave Player, a free Director plugin for Netscape Navigator to display interactive content on the web. Macromedia licensed Sun's Java Programming Language in October 1995.

In January 1995, Macromedia acquired Altsys Corporation, developer of the vector-drawing program FreeHand and font editor Fontographer. Adobe Systems had acquired Aldus Corporation, which held the marketing rights to FreeHand. Because of the program's similarities with Adobe Illustrator, Altsys protested the sale and the Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint in October 1994, ordering the divestiture of FreeHand back to Altsys. The company then sold itself to Macromedia.

With Macromedia's acquisition of Altsys, it received FreeHand thus expanding its product line of multimedia graphics software to include illustration and design graphics software. FreeHand's vector graphics rendering engine and other software components within the program would prove useful to Macromedia in the development of Fireworks.

Despite early success, Macromedia's stock ultimately plateaued at $63.75 per share in December 1995. By 1997, shares fell as low as $7.13 per share. Rob Burgess was brought on as president in 1996. He laid off 10% of the company's staff, discontinued many products, and put a larger focus on web development.