US tax authorities had initially aquired a license that allowed them to distribute the Reader for free.

Adobe learnt the lesson the hard way, that a document generation software is not selling when the reader software is not free. (FreeHand) clients doubt that Altsys is able to manage FreeHand development and marketing.ġ994: Acrobat Reader is made available for free. Adobe is not allowed to buy any vector graphics package for 10 years. As a result of this the FTO orders Adobe to hand back FreeHand (and the customer database) to Altsys.

Timeworks Publisher)ġ981: foundation of Quark (first product: text editing software for Apple II and III)ġ982: foundation of Adobe (first product: PostScript)ġ984: foundation of Altsys (developers of Fontographer, FreeHand)ġ984: foundation of Aldus (products besides PageMaker: OPI TIFF - in partnerhsip with Microsoft)ġ984: foundation of MacroMind (first product: SoundVision/MusicWorks)ġ985: PageMaker, the first DTP software package (Aldus)ġ986: Fontographer, the first font editor (Altsys)ġ986: Ventura Publisher (for IBM PCs, distributed by Xerox)ġ987: foundation of Authorware (first product: Authorware, authoring package for developing e-learning)ġ987: GST Timeworks Publisher (for Atari TOS)ġ987: foundation of Serif (first product: DTP software PagePlus)ġ987: Display (later named Photoshop) is developed and used by John Knoll in the creation of VXF effects for »The Abyss«ġ988: FreeHand (licensed to Aldus by Altsys)ġ988: Adobe licenses Photoshop from the Knoll brothersġ990: QuarkXPress 3 (the first commercially successful version after version 1 was launched in 1987)ġ992: MacroMind and Authorware merger to form Macromediaġ992: Foundation of FutureWave (developer of what later became Flash)ġ993: PDF 1.0 and Acrobat Reader (initially the Reader cost 50 US $)ġ993: Aldus buys CoSA (developer of After Effects)ġ994: Aldus and Adobe Merger Altsys sues Adobe for the takeover of FreeHand.

I have done some googling, clicked on any available link and here are the results: the timeline of DTP software and their developers.ġ979: Foundation of GST Computer Systems (products: e.g. This article is meant as an introduction for everyone who doesn't have the time to do some research, but still wants to take part in the discussion of which software company drove which other into bankcruptcy. Übersicht: Tipps, Tricks und Tutorials im Vektorgarten Publishing software timeline

Dtp software open source