Joseph J. Allaire (born 1969), better known professionally as J. J. Allaire, is an American-born

software engineer Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term ''p ...

and

Internet entrepreneur An Internet entrepreneur is an owner, founder or manager of an Internet-based business. This list includes Internet company founders and people brought on to companies for their general business or accounting acumen, as is the case with some CEOs ...

. He created the ColdFusion programming language and web application server and founded

Allaire Corporation Allaire Corporation was a computer software company founded by Jeremy and JJ Allaire in Minnesota, later headquartered in Cambridge, then Newton, Massachusetts. It commenced operations in May 1995, had its initial public offering on NASDAQ (trad ...

OnFolio Windows Live Toolbar was a browser extension toolbar for Internet Explorer. It superseded MSN Search Toolbar. Windows Live Toolbar provided a simple search interface that starts to list results as the user types in a search query, and uses Bing ...

, FitNow, and

RStudio RStudio is an integrated development environment for R, a programming language for statistical computing and graphics. It is available in two formats: RStudio Desktop is a regular desktop application while RStudio Server runs on a remote server ...

. Allaire created LoseIt! and

Windows Live Writer Windows Live Writer is a discontinued desktop blog-publishing application that was developed by Microsoft and distributed as part of the Windows Live suite of apps. The last major release of Windows Live Writer came out in 2012 ( end-of-life), an ...

. Allaire is currently the founder and CEO of statistical computing company

Early life

Joseph J Allaire received his bachelor's degree from

Macalester College Macalester College () is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 2,174 students in the fall of 2018 from 50 U.S. states, four U.S te ...

in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1991.

ColdFusion and Allaire Corporation

In 1995, Allaire created ColdFusion. The same year, Allaire founded

in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Allaire moved the company to

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

in 1996 with his brother and founding team member,

Jeremy Allaire Jeremy D. Allaire (born 13 May 1971) is an American-born technologist and Internet entrepreneur. He is CEO and founder of the digital currency company Circle and chairman of the board of Brightcove. With his brother JJ Allaire, he co-founded All ...

. Allaire served as the Chairman and CEO of Allaire Corporation, then as its Executive Vice President of Products after hiring David Orfao as the company's CEO. Allaire Corporation had an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investme ...

in 1999. In 2001, Allaire Corporation was acquired by

Macromedia Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe System ...

Onfolio, Microsoft, and Windows Live Writer

In 2002, Allaire co-founded

Onfolio Windows Live Toolbar was a browser extension toolbar for Internet Explorer. It superseded MSN Search Toolbar. Windows Live Toolbar provided a simple search interface that starts to list results as the user types in a search query, and uses Bing ...

with Adam Berrey and Charles Teague and led the development of its suite of tools for web research and publishing, released in 2004. Onfolio was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

in 2006. At Microsoft, Allaire created a blog publishing product called

, initially released in 2007. Windows Live Writer was distributed by Microsoft as part of Windows Essentials, until it was discontinued in 2015 and forked into an open-source version called Open Live Writer.

FitNow and Lose It!

In 2008, Allaire, Paul DiCristina and Charles Teague co-founded FitNow, a company dedicated to mobile health and fitness applications, and created Lose It!, a mobile weight loss application with over 17 million users.

RStudio

In 2009, Allaire founded

, a company that builds tools for the R statistical computing environment. Allaire created the company's flagship product

, a 2015

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...

Technology of the Year Award recipient.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allaire, Joseph J. 1969 births Living people People from South Bend, Indiana Businesspeople from Minnesota Macalester College alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople American computer businesspeople American software engineers American technology chief executives American technology company founders Businesspeople in information technology 21st-century American inventors R (programming language) people