Category Archives: Companies

Officially called Netscape Communications Corporation, Netscape was founded by James H. Clark and Marc Andreessen in 1994. It revolutionized the computer software market by giving away for free its popular Navigator Web browser until it had acquired an overwhelming market share for this category of software. This strategy is now used by many other software companies, including Microsoft, which also distributes its Web browser, Internet Explorer, for free.

In addition to its browsers, Netscape also produces Web servers and tools for building intranets. Indeed, its in the server category that Netscape gets most of its revenue. The company was bought by AOL a few years later.

Short for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, Yahoo! is a World Wide Web directory started by David Filo and Jerry Yang at Stanford University. The two began compiling and categorizing Web pages in 1994. By 1996, they had one of the most popular Web sites.

In 1993, NVIDIA was incorporated by Jen-Hsun Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem. In 1995, the company’s first card, the NV1 was sold as the Diamond Edge. It was a complete 2D/3D PCI card. Microsoft’s DirectX specs caused the card’s sales to plummet, as most began building cards based on this new technology. In 1997, the Riva 128 was their first DirectX compliant card. This launched NVIDIA’s rise to the top with it’s performance and design advantages. In January of 99, the company went public and later acquired it’s one-time competitor 3dfx Interactive. By February 2002, NVIDIA had shipped 100 million processors. For years it shared the top of the video card market with rival ATI. It was later bought by AMD.

Founded in 1969 and based in Sunnyvale, California, AMD is a global supplier of integrated circuits for the personal and networked computer/communications markets with facilities in the United States, Europe, and Asia. AMD produces microprocessors, Flash memory devices, and silicon solutions for communications and networking.

id Software was formed by John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack, and is now considered the most influential of the many game development companies in the Dallas area, known as the Dallas Gaming Mafia. Their first succesful game was Commander Keen but they landed squarely on the gaming map in 1992 with Wolfenstein 3D, a first person shooter with unheard of 3D graphics and violence. Perhaps what id is best known for however is the legendary Doom, which set the standard for most first person shooter games to come and put id Software into the pages of computing history by inventing an entire genre. It was followed up by several sequels, then the just as popular Quake series of games. Each version has progressively set the bar and influenced millions of developers. Today id is still blowing away gamers with Doom 3 and Quake 4.

From Symantec’s “Corporate Information”

Symantec, the world leader in Internet security technology, provides a broad range of content and network security software and appliance solutions to individuals, enterprises and service providers. The company is a leading provider of client, gateway and server security solutions for virus protection, firewall and virtual private network, vulnerability management, intrusion detection, Internet content and e-mail filtering, and remote management technologies and security services to enterprises and service providers around the world. Symantec’s Norton brand of consumer security products is a leader in worldwide retail sales and industry awards. Headquartered in Cupertino, Calif., Symantec has worldwide operations in 38 countries.

 From Silicon Graphics’  Company Info

SGI, also known as Silicon Graphics, Inc., is the world’s leader in high-performance computing, visualization, and the management of complex data. SGI’s vision is to provide technology that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the 21st century. Whether it’s sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil more efficiently, studying global climate, or enabling the transition from analog to digital broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for scientific, engineering, and creative users.

Pixar Animation Studios combines creative and technical artistry to create original stories in the medium of computer animation. In partnership with Disney, Pixar has created four of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time: Academy Award®-winning Toy Story (1995), A Bug’s Life (1998), Golden Globe-winner Toy Story 2 (1999) and Monsters, Inc. (2001). Pixar’s four films have earned more than $1.5 billion at the worldwide box office to date. Pixar is located in Emeryville, California, and has over 600 employees. It’s recent films have included Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.

Pixar recently became embroiled in a dispute with Walt Disney over it’s film contract with the company. They will release Cars, it’s final contractually obligated movie for Disney, in 2006.

AOL began in 1985, originally founded as Quantum Computer Services. It officially became America Online in 1989. Four years later, in 1993, AOL had only 500,000 members. It provided access to the Internet, and, in addition, offered access to its own online information and services, which were specifically tailored to the needs and interests of the average American consumer. Just four years after that, in 1997, AOL had grown to 9 million members.

Now, AOL has more than 34 million members worldwide and is widely acknowledged as the best consumer online service. AOL’s history and success is based on its intention to connect more than just computers; AOL connects people, and the AOL community has become one of the largest ‘cities’ in the world.

In 2001, AOL bought Time Warner and became AOL Time Warner.

Created in 1984 by Michael Dell while enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, it was initially called PCs Limited. Working on his own, he ran the company from his dormitory, and sold IBM compatible PCs built from standard parts. After getting an investment from his family,  Dell dropped out of college to focus on the company full time.  The first Dell-designed computer was the Turbo PC,  with a price tag of $795. It used an Intel 8088 chip and ran at 8 Mhz. Originally advertised in magazines as custom assembled machines, PCs Limited became highly successful, grossing more than $73 million it’s first year.

In 1988, the company name was changed to Dell Computer Corp. and set up its first on-site service centers the following year. By late 88, Dell’s market share had soared to $80 million after an IPO, and Michael Dell became one of the great success stories of the computer industry. By 1992, Dell was on Fortune Magazine’s 500 world largest companies. After beginning to sell its computers on the Dell website, the company began expanding into other markets, including handheld devices, digital audio players, and printers. The company name was changed yet again in 2003 to Dell Inc. Today Dell is one of the most prominent PC manufacturers on the planet, and continues to be successful under Michael Dell’s direction.