Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. The company originated in the 1992 after the merger of Authorware Inc. (makers of Authorware) and MacroMind-Paracomp (makers of Macromind Director).
Macromedia's flagship product until the mid-1990s was the Director, an interactive multimedia-authoring tool used to make CD-ROMs and information kiosks. As the CD-ROM market began to decline and the World Wide Web gained in popularity, Macromedia created Shockwave, a viewer plugin for Director in web browsers, but later moved to expand its market by branching out into web-native media tools.
In 1997, Keyur Patel and Stephen Elop created its first web strategy which later proved to be the most valuable pivot point for Macromedia in being acquired by Adobe for $3.4 billion in share swap.
By 2002 Macromedia produced more than 20 products and had 30 offices in 13 different countries.