Macromedia (一译：宏媒体公司) 是在1992年Authorware公司(Authorware的最初开发商)与MacroMind-Paracomp公司(Director的最初开发商)的合并中产生的，现为一家专门开发图象处理与Web制作软件的软件公司，总部设在美国加里福利亚州的旧金山。Adobe系统公司是其主要竞争对手。2001年，宏媒体公司购进Allaire公司并将其Web开发软件加入自己的产品系列。2003年，宏媒体公司又收购了专门开发制作帮助软件的eHelp公司，其代表产品包括RoboHelp, RoboDemo(现为Captivate)和RoboInfo。

2005年4月18日，Macromedia被美国著名图形软件开发商也是最大的竞争对手Adobe系统公司以34亿美元价格收购，这一收购极大丰富了Adobe的产品线，提高了其在多媒体和网络出版业的能力。

2005年12月3日，随着Adobe宣布完成并购，Macromedia从此更名为Adobe，而旗下产品的品牌名称亦会逐渐被取代。

Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software house headquartered in San Francisco, California. Its best-known product was Macromedia Flash. The line of Macromedia products is now controlled by its former rival, Adobe Systems.

History

Macromedia was formed by the 1992 merger of Authorware, Inc. (makers of Authorware) and MacroMind-Paracomp (makers of Macromind Director).

Director, an interactive multimedia authoring tool widely used to make CD-ROMs and information kiosks, was Macromedia's flagship product until the mid-1990s. As the CD-ROM market began to decline and the World Wide Web gained in popularity, Macromedia created Shockwave, a Director viewer plugin for Web browsers, but decided it also needed to expand its market by branching out into web-native media tools.

Acquisitions

To jumpstart its web strategy, the company made two acquisitions in 1996. First, Macromedia acquired FutureWave Software, makers of FutureSplash Animator, an animation tool originally designed for pen-based computing devices. Because of the small size of the FutureSplash viewer application, it was particularly suited for download over the Web, where at the time most users had low-bandwidth connections. Macromedia renamed Splash to Macromedia Flash, and following the lead of Netscape, distributed the Flash Player as a free browser plugin in order to quickly gain market share. The strategy included both disabling a users choice to not install the software in the future and then subsequently forcing that decision with every subsequent page creating a nuisance but deemed a success; as of 2005, more computers worldwide had the Flash Player installed than any other Web media format, including Java, QuickTime, RealNetworks and Windows Media Player. 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 1997Also in 1996, Macromedia acquired iBand Software, makers of the fledgling Backstage HTML authoring tool and application server. Macromedia developed a new HTML authoring tool, Macromedia 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 continued on the M&A trail, and in December 1999 it acquired traffic analysis software company Andromedia. Web development company Allaire was acquired in 2001, and Macromedia added several popular server and Web development products to its portfolio including ColdFusion, a web application server based on the CFML language; JRun, a J2EE application server; and HomeSite, an HTML code editor that was eventually bundled with Dreamweaver.

In 2003, Macromedia acquired Web conferencing company Presedia and continued to develop and enhance their Flash-based online collaboration and presentation product offering under the brand Breeze. Later that year, Macromedia also acquired help authoring software company eHelp Corporation, whose products included RoboHelp & RoboDemo (Now Captivate). Many of the developers of RoboHelp went on to form MadCap Software which is a competitor in the help-authoring space.

Purchase

"Formerly Macromedia" logoOn April 18, 2005, Adobe Systems announced an agreement to acquire Macromedia in a stock swap valued at about $3.4 billion on the last trading day before the announcement. The acquisition was consummated on December 3, 2005, and the companies' operations, networks, and customer care organizations were integrated shortly thereafter.