Aldus Corporation

Aldus Corporation was a software company that had developed PageMaker and marketed FreeHand.

History
Aldus was founded by Paul Brainerd, Jeremy Jaech, Mark Sundstrom, Mike Templeman, and Dave Walter in Seattle, Washington in February 1984. In the fall of 1987, Aldus licensed a graphical program from Altsys Corporation and released it as Aldus FreeHand, with Altsys retaining development rights.

Merger
In February 1990, Aldus announced its intention to acquire Silicon Beach Software, which was completed for US$25.5 million in stock. Aldus appointed Bruce Chizen as the VP and general manager of the studio in San Diego.

Aldus itself was absorbed by Adobe Systems in a merger that was completed on August 31, 1994. Altsys sued to regain marketing rights to FreeHand, citing a non-compete clause because of Adobe's development of Adobe Illustrator. Other products from the Aldus line were rebranded to Adobe in May 1995. By December 2000, Bruce Chizen had become the CEO of Adobe.

Products

 * After Effects
 * Aldus Fetch
 * Aldus FreeHand
 * Aldus Gallery Effects
 * Aldus IntelliDraw
 * Aldus PageMaker
 * Aldus Persuasion
 * Aldus PhotoStyler
 * Aldus SuperCard
 * Aldus SuperPaint

Articles

 * Expanding the Empire, Inside the Publishing Revolution: The Adobe Story by Pamela Pfiffner (PDF, 2003-03)