FutureWave Software, Inc. was a software development company based in

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, California. The company was co-founded by Charlie Jackson and Jonathan Gay on January 22, 1993. The VP of Marketing was Linda Michelle Alsip, who also came from

Silicon Beach Software Silicon Beach Software, Inc. was an early American developer of software products for the Apple Macintosh, Macintosh personal computer. It was founded in San Diego, California, in 1984 by Charlie Jackson (software), Charlie Jackson and his wife Ha ...

, then

Aldus Corporation Aldus Corporation was an American software company best known for its pioneering desktop publishing software. PageMaker, the company's most well-known product, ushered in the modern era of desktop computers such as the Macintosh seeing widesp ...

.MACROMEDIA FLASH BACK
Digital ArchaeologyPC Graphics & Video, Volume 6, Issues 1-6
Advanstar Communications, 1997Personal Computer Magazine
PC Communications Corporation, 1995 The company's first product was SmartSketch, a drawing program for the PenPoint OS and EO tablet computer. When

pen computing Pen computing refers to any computer user-interface using a digital pen or Stylus (computing), stylus and Graphics tablet, tablet, over input devices such as a keyboard or a mouse. Historically, pen computing (defined as a computer system employin ...

did not take off, SmartSketch was ported to the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

and

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

platforms. As the Internet became more popular, FutureWave realized the potential for a vector-based web animation tool that might challenge

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

Shockwave In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...

technology. In 1995, FutureWave modified SmartSketch by adding frame-by-frame animation features and re-released it as FutureSplash Animator on Macintosh and Windows. By that time, the company had added a second programmer Robert Tatsumi, artist Adam Grofcsik, and PR specialist Ralph Mittman. In December 1996, FutureWave was acquired by Macromedia, who renamed the animation editor Macromedia Flash.

References

{{US-software-company-stub Defunct software companies of the United States Adobe Flash Adobe Inc. Software companies established in 1993 Software companies disestablished in 1996 1996 mergers and acquisitions Technology companies based in San Diego Software companies based in California Defunct computer companies based in California