Macromedia

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Macromedia, Inc.
Number of employees
1,445 (2004)
Websitewww.macromedia.com (archived Dec 31, 2005)

Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and

Adobe Systems on December 3, 2005.[3]

History

Macromedia originated with the 1992 merger of Authorware Inc. (makers of

Authorware) and MacroMind–Paracomp (makers of Macromind Director
).

Dreamweaver. Macromedia created Shockwave, a Director-viewer plugin for web browsers. The first multimedia playback in Netscape's browser was a Director plug-in. Macromedia licensed Sun's Java Programming Language in October 1995. By 2002, Macromedia had produced more than 20 products and had 30 offices in 13 countries.[4]

Acquisitions

In January 1995, Macromedia acquired

FreeHand, which had been licensed by Aldus for marketing and sales. Because of the similarities with Adobe Illustrator, the Federal Trade Commission issued a complaint in October 1994 ordering the divestiture of FreeHand back to Altsys.[6] 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
.

In March 1996, Macromedia acquired iBand Software, makers of the Backstage HTML authoring tool and application server. Macromedia developed a new

Dreamweaver, around portions of the Backstage codebase and released the first version in 1997. At the time, most professional web authors preferred to code HTML by hand using text editors because they wanted full control over the source. Dreamweaver addressed this with its "Roundtrip HTML" feature, which attempted to preserve the fidelity of hand-edited source code during visual edits, allowing users to work back and forth between visual and code editing. Over the next few years Dreamweaver became widely adopted among professional web authors, though many still preferred to hand-code, and Microsoft FrontPage
remained a strong competitor among amateur and business users.

Macromedia acquired

Java, QuickTime, RealNetworks, and Windows Media Player.[7]
As Flash matured, Macromedia's focus shifted from marketing it as a graphics and media tool to promoting it as a Web application platform, adding scripting and data access capabilities to the player while attempting to retain its small footprint.

Macromedia logo used until 1997

In December 1999, Macromedia acquired

Java EE application server, and HomeSite
, an HTML code editor that was also bundled with Dreamweaver.

In 2003, Macromedia acquired the web conferencing company Presedia and continued to develop and enhance their Flash-based online collaboration and presentation product offering under the brand

RoboHelp and RoboDemo (now Adobe Captivate
).

Purchase

On April 18, 2005,

Adobe Systems announced an agreement to acquire Macromedia in a stock swap valued at approximately $3.4 billion on the last trading day before the announcement. The acquisition took place on December 3, 2005, and Adobe integrated the company's operations, networks, and customer care organizations shortly thereafter.[8]

Lawsuits

On August 22, 1997, stockholders filed a class-action lawsuit in the California Superior Court in San Francisco, accusing Macromedia of misleading stockholders on the company's product success and financial health. A similar suit had been filed a month earlier.[9] The class-action suit was dismissed by a federal judge on May 19, 1998.[10]

On August 10, 2000, Adobe claimed that Macromedia violated two of its patents on tabbed palettes.[11][12] Macromedia countered with a claim that Adobe infringed on Macromedia's patents for a draw-based editor for Web pages and a hierarchical structure editor for Web sites.[13] In July 2002, Adobe and Macromedia reached an agreement that settled all claims in this series of patent suits.[14][15] Eventually, Adobe acquired Macromedia 3 years later.

Leadership

  • 1992: Bud Colligan became co-founder and CEO of Macromedia, a position he held until 1997; he served as board chairman 1992–1998.[16]
  • 1994: Altsys Corp and CEO James Von Ehr became a Macromedia vice-president, a position he held until 1997.[4]
  • 1996: Robert K. Burgess was hired as President of Macromedia, and became CEO in 1997, a position he held until 2005; he served as Board Chairman 1998–2005, a position he held when the company was acquired by Adobe.[17][18]
  • 1997: Betsey Nelson became Chief Financial Officer, a position she held until Macromedia was acquired by Adobe.[19]
  • 2004: Stephen Elop became Chief Operating Officer.[20]
  • 2005: Stephen Elop had been CEO for three months when Macromedia announced it would be acquired by Adobe.[21]

Products

Part of Adobe

Discontinued products

See also

References

  1. ^ "ADOBE MACROMEDIA SOFTWARE LLC". OpenCorporates. May 16, 2021. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
  2. ^ "Adobe to acquire Macromedia". Archived from the original on April 20, 2005. Retrieved April 18, 2005.
  3. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 28, 2020.
  4. ^ a b "Macromedia Company History". Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  5. ^ Vadlamudi, Pardhu (November 7, 1994). Macromedia's purchase of Altsys raises questions. InfoWorld. Retrieved February 11, 2011.
  6. ^ "Federal Trade Commission Decisions, Complaint 118 F." (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 24, 2010. Retrieved February 11, 2011.
  7. ZDNet. Archived from the original on January 9, 2009. Retrieved December 26, 2008 – via Internet Archive
    .
  8. Adobe Systems. Archived from the original
    on June 2, 2007. Retrieved December 29, 2008.
  9. cNet. Archived from the original
    on August 29, 2012. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  10. ^ Murphy, Tom (May 19, 1998). "Macromedia shareholder suits dismissed 05-19-98". MarketWatch. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  11. PC Magazine
    . Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  12. CNet
    . Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  13. ^ ComputerWire (May 13, 2002). "Macromedia wins $4.9m in Adobe patent suit". The Register. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  14. ^ Dalrymple, Jim (July 29, 2002). "Adobe, Macromedia reach agreement in Patent lawsuit". Macworld. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  15. ^ "Adobe and Macromedia settle patent lawsuits". Pinsent Masons. July 30, 2002.
  16. ^ "Bud Colligan". NNDB. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  17. ^ "Robert K. Burgess". NNDB. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  18. ^ "Profile, Robert K. Burgess". Forbes. Archived from the original on March 27, 2010. Retrieved February 17, 2011 – via Internet Archive.
  19. ^ "Macromedia Names Stephen Elop Chief Executive Office; Rob Burgess Continues As Chairman". Macromedia. January 19, 2005. Archived from the original on February 14, 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
  20. ^ Macromedia, Inc. (July 28, 2004). "Macromedia Names Stephen Elop as Chief Operating Officer; Core Leadership Team Broadens with New Marketing and Sales Executives". Business Wire. Retrieved August 29, 2018.
  21. ^ "How will Stephen Elop fare at Microsoft?". ComputerWorld. January 11, 2008. Archived from the original on July 8, 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2011.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Macromedia&oldid=1199242230"