Adobe
More info
- Founded
- Founders
- John Warnock, Charles Geschke
- Headquarters
- San Jose, California
- Type
- Software company
- Website
- adobe.com
Owns the file formats graphic production rests on — PostScript, PDF, and a long line of programs whose names became verbs.
Warnock and Geschke left Xerox PARC when the company would not commercialise their page description language. PostScript became Adobe's first product instead, and when Apple put it in the LaserWriter in 1985, desktop publishing came into existence as an industry. Illustrator followed in 1987, Photoshop in 1990, PDF in 1993.
The 2005 acquisition of Macromedia brought in Flash, which became the web's interactive layer until Apple refused to support it on the iPhone. The 2013 move to subscriptions with Creative Cloud was profitable and unpopular in equal measure. PDF was opened as an ISO standard in 2008.