[1] PKWARE was founded in 1986 by Phil Katz, a software developer who had begun distributing a new file compression utility, called PKARC, as shareware.

PKARC represented a radical improvement over existing compression software (including the ARC utility, on which it was based) and gained popularity among individuals and corporations.

PKZIP was the first program to use the new ZIP file format, which Katz developed in conjunction with Gary Conway and subsequently released into the public domain.

[2] The ZIP format proved so popular that it became the de facto standard for data compression and remains in use throughout the world after more than 30 years.

[2] After Katz died in 2000, his family sold the company to a new management team led by George Haddix and backed by investment-banking firm Grace Matthews.

In the following years, PKWARE continued to add support for large and small platform operating systems and introduced new features for both PKZIP and SecureZIP.

Viivo received attention for having been developed outside of traditional methods in an effort toward "disruptive innovation" in the emerging cloud security market.

[8][9] In addition to its data compression and encryption products, PKWARE continues to maintain the ZIP file format standard in the public domain.