QDesign Corporation was a developer of digital audio compression technologies.
QDesign licensed the initial version of the codec and created the official audio compression in Apple Computer's QuickTime v3.
Apple steered away from proprietary codecs in QuickTime like Sorenson Video and QDesign, and focused on standards like (MPEG-4).
In recent years, usage of QDMC (= QDesign Music Codec) has generally given way to AAC.
[2] The company also developed "QDX", a proprietary audio format targeted at providing the music industry with a solution to secure digital music distribution.