Aldus

Aldus Corporation revolutionized the use of personal computers when it introduced its PageMaker program in 1985, virtually creating the desktop publishing industry. Although the company has not been able to match the inventiveness of its original program, it is a major American producer of desktop publishing and graphics software, selling a dozen different computer programs in 19 languages in 50 different countries. Since the mid-1980s, the company has grown steadily, but has continued to rely heavily on its flagship program into the 1990s. Aldus was founded in late February 1984 by Paul Brainerd. Brainerd had earned a graduate degree in journalism at the University of Minnesota before taking a job in production at the Minneapolis Star and Tribune. In 1980 he joined Atex, a company that sold computer-assisted publishing equipment to the newspaper industry. In 1983, this company was purchased by Eastman Kodak, which decided to close the plant in Redmond, Washington, where Brainerd was working. Rather than transfer to another location, Brainerd and five other Atex engineers decided to stay in the Pacific Northwest and start up their own company. After selling his Atex stock, Brainerd used the $100,000 he had earned to found the new enterprise. He and his partners decided to name their company Aldus, after Aldus Manutius, a fifteenth-century Venetian pioneer in publishing. Manutius had standardized the rules of punctuation and also invented italic type. He went on to found the first modern publishing house, the Aldine Press. The founders of Aldus set out to produce a computer software program that would allow its users to 'paste up' text and graphics together on a screen, creating a product that closely resembled a page made in the conventional fashion, with cutting and pasting. When a page was completed, it would then be printed out all at once on a computer laser printer. They aimed for a process that would be relatively easy to use and far less expensive than conventional printing processes. Brainerd called this innovation 'desktop publishing.' This advance was made possible by the graphic capabilities of the newly introduced Macintosh computer, marketed by Apple Computer Inc., so Brainerd and his partners designed their program explicitly for use on the Macintosh. The interdependency of Aldus and Apple products spurred the companies' close cooperation. Aldus helped Apple to market its hardware to customers who wanted desktop publishing capabilities. In return, Apple featured Aldus's software in much of its advertising, and also helped the fledgling company distribute its program. In January 1987, these efforts bore fruit when Aldus introduced its IBM-compatible PageMaker software for use with Windows operating systems. IBM later endorsed PageMaker as part of its own desktop publishing program. In addition, in December 1986 Aldus had finalized an agreement with computer maker Wang Laboratories to distribute Aldus software. Three months later, it also linked up with the Digital Equipment company to sell Aldus programs for use on Digital's VAX computers. After successfully making the PageMaker program accessible to all kinds of computers, Aldus decided to offer its program to computer users outside the United States. In January 1987, Aldus joined with a partner to form Aldus Scotland, Ltd., of which it owned 30 percent. The purpose of this venture was to market Aldus products throughout the United Kingdom and Europe. Nine months later, Aldus took one step toward further expansion when it converted Aldus Scotland, Ltd. to Aldus Europe, Ltd. Based in Craigcrook Castle, a sixteenth-century turreted stronghold outside Edinburgh, Scotland, Aldus had established itself as Europe's leading producer of desktop publishing software by the spring of 1988. Controlling nearly half of the British, French, and German markets for these products, PageMaker was the world's fourth most popular software program. Despite the popularity of the