Macromedia started out as a pioneer in multimedia software for CD-ROMs. When the world wide web came along, it was among the first companies to identify its technical and business potential and to develop products, such as its Flash web animation software which is installed on some 98% of all PCs. For the future, though, Macromedia, which has sales of $369 million, believes its highest potential lies in products for non-PC gadgets such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, DVDs, etc. The company is also reaching beyond its traditional customer base of web designers and developers to focus on business users and consumers. Knowledge@Wharton recently spoke to CEO Rob Burgess and CFO Betsey Nelson in Macromedia's San Francisco headquarters to explore where the company sees its opportunities - and threats.
Knowledge@Wharton: As IT companies go, Macromedia is relatively small - but it has had a huge impact on the web. What's your secret?
Burgess: You're right about it making a huge impact. When I came down here from Toronto in about 1996 or 1997, it seemed like half of the people in Silicon Valley [had] a personal experience with Macromedia. And if you look at our background over the last 10 years, you can see why.
In the early days, Macromedia had most of the main brands for creating better experiences on CD-ROM. So we're sort of a founder, if you will, of the multimedia industry - which touched a lot of people's lives. All of a sudden you could do pictures and sounds and words on computers, and mix them together. And they made very powerful experiences.
Betsey and I joined Macromedia just as the CD-ROM industry was peaking out. And we started investing very heavily in the Internet. Products like Flash and Dreamweaver - and other brands - played a leading role in enabling people to make better experiences on the Internet.
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