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An interactive revolutionary An industry leader in the development and marketing of multimedia, graphic, and video software, Macromedia is at the forefront of the "interactive" revolution. Formed by the 1992 merger between Authorware and Macromind/Paracomp, Macromedia makes software tools employed by more than one million, or 75 percent, of all professional developers and 2 million business users. Macromedia's innovations have been widely praised by the industry, and over half of the leading CD-ROM multimedia titles are constructed with Macromedia tools. For these reasons, by naming Macromedia to the Fortune e-50 Index, Fortune Magazine will be using the company to track the impact and growth of the Internet economy. What separates Macromedia from many other software players is that its product managers also function like business managers - monitoring a product's movement to the consumers as well as its original production - giving them fiscal responsibility for the products they create. C'mon back, big mac! The company's flagship line includes animation and multimedia products such as Macromedia Freehand and Macromedia Director, and most prominently, Macromedia's Shockwave systems and Flash. Shockwave allows for stunning web animation and sound streamed smoothly into your desktop, and has received increased attention as connections become fast enough to support such applications. The systems have been used to develop web pages for General Motors and Black & Decker. Shockwave is better known for its use in play than in work, though - the systems were used for Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible, and Comedy Central's South Park. Macromedia is one of the top most visited Web properties, due in part to the popularity of Macromedia's Flash. The Flash Player is the most widely Web-distributed software in history. At the Webby Awards in May 2000, a majority of the winners used Macromedia products on their sites, including the winner of the year's special catergory, the SFMOMA Webby Prize for Online Art, won by Entropy8Zuper and who used Flash. Also using Flash was the winner of the "Best of Show" award and a gold award for best overalll creative design at the @d: Tech World Awards, won by Balthaser Studios for its own Web site. The Flash Player is installed on more than 90 percent of Web desktops, ahead of Java's 85 percent. Being on the cutting edge of animation and web design, though, does not ensure a profit - Macromedia lost money in both its 1997 and 1998 fiscal years. Ready for the Web Things seem be on an upswing for the multimedia company, however, with the resurgence of its partner Macintosh, which still has a healthy share of Macromedia-using publishing desktops. The company was finally able to post a profit in fiscal 1999, as Flash and Shockwave images proved friendliest to poky modems. But as higher-speed access gains currency, Macromedia is positioning itself to lead the broadband imaging revolution. In 1999 the company launched its shockwave.com entertainment center, replete with cartoons, games, music, and animated greeting cards. The business, which will replace shockrave.com, was originally created to showcase Macromedia's software, namely Shockwave and Flash, but with more than 14 million visitors to the site, the company will eventually go public. It isn't turning a profit yet, but it shouldn't be too long before it does, with such producers as James Brooks, David Lynch, and Tim Burton signed on, as well as animators Stan Lee and South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker. 1999 also saw the launching of Macromedia's eBusiness Infrastructure run by the Macromedia eBusiness Solutions Group, the first comprehensive, integrated solution for content creation, content management, personalization, and analysis of corporate Internet sites. At the end 1999, the Group was named by Computerworld as one of the "Top 100 Emerging Companies to Watch in 2000." Another unit to watch is Macromedia Ventures, which was formed in March 2000 to invest in revolutionary companies sharing Macromedia's idea of the Web infrastructure and the rich-media, multi-device, broadband Internet of the future. Already Ventures has invested in Spiderdance, iHarvest Corporation, and Context Media.
"One of the guys I interviewed with was a guy with bright red dreads and skater duds," remembers one employee about the hiring process he went through to land a position at Macromedia. For non-sales jobs, insiders advise interviewees "not to wear a suit - everyone wears jeans and T-shirts." This doesn't mean that the interviews are entirely relaxing. Insiders report that some sessions can run "six hours long." Macromedia accepts resumes by both e-mail and regular mail. The company prefers that applicants sending resumes electronically format them as Microsoft Word files and keep any attached file to under 50KB in size. A leader in Web innovation, Macromedia's own employment Web site, which can be accessed from the company's web site at www.macromedia.com, provides regularly updated information on current job opportunities as well as a schedule of campus recruiting visits.
Awash in creative juices "Macromedia is a company that recently grew from less than a hundred people to around 550 and survived," describes one insider of the company's corporate culture. Pool and ping-pong tables, video games, and monthly free pizza lunches set the tone for the "informal" and "progressive" corporate culture at Macromedia. "The software we create at Macromedia is some of the best around," says one employee, "and the company gives us these toys to help keep the creative juices flowing." At times, though, some feel that "the bureaucracy can get in the way." But the environment makes up for a lot. As one employee says, "There are lots of artists and musicians and the engineering talent is amazing. I've never been around so many brilliant people in my life." There are also "a lot of young people working here." Employees also appreciate the "cultural and intellectual diversity" that includes "everyone from yuppies to punkers to rappers" as well as the pay scale. While there are few women at the company, "there are free tampons in the bathroom." At Macromedia there are "3 R's" to live by, "do you act respectfully, are you responsive and do you get results." Employees report having "an open-door policy with management." Occasional tough hours, but love the options Dress code "sorta depends on which department you work in. Obviously people in marketing have to dress the part" but in development, referred to as "dev," employees are required to wear no clothes "except those required by law." Hours are "like any company doing development." Macromedia employees "usually work normal hours (40- to 45-hour weeks) for most of the year," however during production time "they may be as much as 70+ hours a week." "It can get pretty demanding," one employee admits. As for pay, insiders tell us that stock options "are given to all full-time employees." A recently-hired employee comments that she joined the company partly because "Macromedia was willing to pay me exactly what I wanted."
Human Resources-Attn.:Staffing Macromedia1 600 Townsend St, 3rd Floor San Francisco CA 94103 (415) 252-2348
Director;FreeHand;Shockwave;Fireworks;Dreamweaver;Authorware
Adobe; Corel;Micrografx;Microsoft;Netscape;RealNetworks;Quark More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
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