Aldus Corporation was a software company that had developed PageMaker and marketed FreeHand.
History[]
Aldus was founded by Paul Brainerd, Jeremy Jaech, Mark Sundstrom, Mike Templeman, and Dave Walter in Seattle, Washington in February 1984.[1] In the fall of 1987, Aldus licensed a graphical program from Altsys Corporation and released it as Aldus FreeHand,[2] with Altsys retaining development rights.[3]
Mergers and acquisitions[]
In February 1990, Aldus announced its intention to acquire Silicon Beach Software,[4] which was completed for US$25.5 million in stock.[5] Aldus appointed Bruce Chizen as the VP and general manager of the studio in San Diego.[6]
Aldus itself was absorbed by Adobe Systems in a merger that was completed on August 31, 1994.[7][8] Altsys sued to regain marketing rights to FreeHand, citing a non-compete clause because of Adobe's development of Adobe Illustrator.[9] Other products from the Aldus line were rebranded to Adobe in May 1995.[10] By December 2000, Bruce Chizen had become the CEO of Adobe.[11]
Products[]
- After Effects
- Aldus Fetch
- Aldus FreeHand
- Aldus Gallery Effects
- Aldus IntelliDraw
- Aldus PageMaker
- Aldus Persuasion
- Aldus PhotoStyler
- Aldus SuperCard
- Aldus SuperPaint
References[]
- ↑ Aldus Corp, Crunchbase. Accessed 2019-11-21.
- ↑ Aldus Licenses Altsys' Mac Graphics Program, InfoWorld p.65. 1987-09-21.
- ↑ Aldus to Add Products, Enhance Pagemaker, InfoWorld p.125. 1987-10-26.
- ↑ Briefs, The New York Times. 1990-02-08.
- ↑ Aldus Corporation History, Funding Universe. Accessed 2019-11-22.
- ↑ Business Leaders: Bruce R. Chizen, MarketScreener. Accessed 2020-04-20.
- ↑ Aldus and Adobe Lay Claim to Digital Publishing by Laurie Flynn, The New York Times. 1994-08-24.
- ↑ Aldus and Adobe Systems Finalize Merger, Computer History Museum. 1994-08-31.
- ↑ Macromedia's purchase of Altsys raises questions by Pardhu Vadlamudi, InfoWorld p.24. 1994-11-07.
- ↑ Adobe Systems Continues Product Line Rebranding, Adobe Systems. 1995-05-08. Archived 1996-10-22.
- ↑ Bruce Chizen Biography, Encyclopedia of World Biography. Accessed 2020-04-21.
External links[]
- Aldus Corporation at Bloomberg
- Aldus Corporation at IT History Society
- Aldus Corporation History at Funding Universe
- Aldus Corporation at Logopedia
- Aldus Corporation at the Macromedia Wiki
- Aldus at Wikipedia
Articles[]
- Expanding the Empire, Inside the Publishing Revolution: The Adobe Story by Pamela Pfiffner (PDF, 2003-03)