Macromedia Final Cut

Macromedia Final Cut (code named "Key Grip") was a video editing application that was in development at Macromedia by a team led by Randy Ubillos, the original software engineer behind Adobe Premiere.

Development
In 1995, a Macromedia board member approached Ubillos with a plan to develop a new video program for faster computers. The original 18-month plan took about 3 years before Final Cut was demonstrated at the NAB Show in April 1998.

Acquisition by Apple
Apple Computer's interim CEO Steve Jobs expressed interest in the Final Cut project after it had been shown at the 1998 NAB Show. Jobs had also asked Adobe Systems to provide a consumer version of Premiere that could be bundled with the upcoming iMac DV, code named Kihei. However, as Apple had been financially struggling at the time, Adobe declined and focused Premiere on the Windows platform. In response, Apple acquired Final Cut's source code and its development team on May 4, 1998. Adobe then met with Apple's management, seeking to shut down the Final Cut project. However, Jobs made a case that Final Cut was different than Premiere and would be beneficial to the overall desktop computer market. It was released as Final Cut Pro in April 1999.

Final Cut Pro won a 2002 Primetime Emmy Engineering Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences on August 21, 2002 for its impact on the television industry. Adobe briefly abandoned development of Premiere for the Mac and released Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0 in August 2003 for Windows only. Apple at the time was offering Premiere owners $500 discounts on upgrades to Final Cut Pro 4 HD or a free trade-in for the consumer version, Final Cut Express.