Macromedia, Inc. was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver.

Tim Mott of MacroMind was named chairman and chief executive officer and Bud Colligan of Authorware became president and CEO of the new company.

[4][5] Director, an interactive multimedia-authoring tool used to make presentations, animations, CD-ROMs and information kiosks, served as the company's flagship product.

Director was used in the creation of many multimedia projects, training programs and presentations for American Airlines, AT&T, and Kellogg's, and even Hollywood films like Jurassic Park and The Firm.

[6] As the Internet moved from a university research medium to a commercial network, Macromedia began working to web-enable its existing tools and develop new products.

FreeHand's vector graphics rendering engine and other software components within the program would prove useful to Macromedia in the development of Fireworks.

[13][14] At the time, most professional web authors preferred to code HTML by hand using text editors because they wanted full control over the source.

[14][15] Over the next few years Dreamweaver became widely adopted among professional web authors, though many still preferred to hand-code, and Microsoft FrontPage remained a strong competitor among amateur and business users.

[21] As Flash matured, Macromedia's focus shifted from marketing it as a graphics and media tool to promoting it as a Web application platform, adding scripting and data access capabilities to the player while attempting to retain its small footprint.

[22] The company also bought web site monitoring and personalization software developer Andromedia for $245 million that December to expand into e-commerce.

[23] In 2003, Macromedia acquired the web conferencing company Presedia and continued to develop and enhance their Flash-based online collaboration and presentation product offering under the brand Breeze.

Later that year, Macromedia also acquired help authoring software company eHelp Corporation, whose products included RoboHelp and RoboDemo (now Adobe Captivate).

[33] South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were contracted to create an original animated series for the website in exchange for equity in the company.