FutureWave Software was a software developer and publisher based in San Diego, California

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

. The company was founded by Charlie Jackson

Charlie Jackson (software)

Charlie Jackson is a computer software entrepreneur who founded Silicon Beach Software in 1984 and co-founded FutureWave Software in 1993. FutureWave created the first version of what is now Adobe Flash. He was an early investor in Wired magazine, Outpost.com, Streamload and Angelic...

 and Jonathan Gay

Jonathan Gay

Jonathan Gay is a computer programmer and software entrepreneur based in Northern California. Gay was a co-founder of FutureWave Software in 1993. For a decade, he was the main programmer and visionary of Flash, an animation editor for web pages...

 in early 1993. VP of Marketing was Michelle Welsh who also came from Silicon Beach Software

Silicon Beach Software

Silicon Beach Software was an early developer of software products for the Macintosh personal computer. It was founded in San Diego, California by Charlie Jackson and his wife Hallie. Jackson later co-founded FutureWave Software with Jonathan Gay, the company that produced the first version of...

, then Aldus

Aldus

Aldus Corporation, named after the 15th-century Venetian printer Aldus Manutius, was the inventor of the groundbreaking PageMaker software, a program that is generally credited with creating the desktop publishing field. The company was founded by Jeremy Jaech, Mark Sundstrom, Mike Templeman,...

.

The company's first product was SmartSketch, a drawing program for the PenPoint OS

PenPoint OS

The PenPoint OS was a product of GO Corporation and was one of the earliest operating systems written specifically for graphical tablets and personal digital assistants...

 and EO tablet computer

EO Personal Communicator

The EO was an early commercial tablet computer created by GO/Eo and released in April 1993. Eo was the hardware spin-out of GO. Officially named the AT&T EO Personal Communicator, it was similar to a large personal digital assistant with wireless communications, and competed against the Apple...

. When Pen computing

Pen computing

Pen computing refers to a computer user-interface using a pen and tablet, rather than devices such as a keyboard, joysticks or a mouse....

 did not take off, SmartSketch was moved to the Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 and Macintosh

Macintosh

The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...

 platforms.

The company's second product was FutureSplash Animator

FutureSplash Animator

FutureSplash Animator was a vector-based animation editor written by Jonathan Gay for this company FutureWave Software. The company and the product were later bought by Macromedia then Adobe Systems, and became Adobe Flash ....

 (1995), a cell-based animation editor.

In December 1996, FutureWave was acquired by Macromedia

Macromedia

Macromedia was an American graphics and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California that produced such products as Flash and Dreamweaver. Its rival, Adobe Systems, acquired Macromedia on December 3, 2005 and controls the line of Macromedia...

, who renamed the animation editor Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...

.