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| Company type | Public |
|---|---|
| Nasdaq: BITS | |
| Industry | Type foundry,mobile phone web browsers |
| Founded | 1981; 45 years ago (1981) |
| Founder | Cherie Cone Matthew Carter Mike Parker  |
| Defunct | March 19, 2012 (2012-03-19) |
| Fate | Acquired byMonotype |
| Headquarters | Marlborough, Massachusetts, United States |
Key people | Amos Kaminski (chairman and InterimCEO) |
Number of employees | 96[1] |
Bitstream Inc. was an Americantype foundry that produced digitaltypefaces. It was founded in 1981 byMatthew Carter,Mike Parker, Cherie Cone, and Rob Friedman, all former employees of theMergenthaler Linotype Company.[2] It was located inMarlborough, Massachusetts. The font business, includingMyFonts, was acquired byMonotype Imaging in March 2012.[3][4] The remainder of the business, responsible for Pageflex andBolt Browser, was spun off to a new entity named Marlborough Software Development Holdings Inc.[5][6] It was later renamed Pageflex, Inc following a successfulmanagement buyout in December 2013.[7]
Bitstream created a library of "classic" fonts (usually under different names fortrademark reasons) in digital form. For example,Times Ten was released asDutch 801,Akzidenz-Grotesk asGothic 725,Aurora asNews 706,Antique Olive asIncised 901,Bembo asAldine 401,Berthold Block asGothic 821, Bodoni Campanile asModern 735,Choc asStaccato 555, Codex asCalligraphic 421,Cochin asEngravers' Oldstyle 205,Coronet asRibbon 131,Eurostile asSquare 721,Frutiger asHumanist 777,Gill Sans asHumanist 521,Kabel asGeometric 231,Memphis asGeoSlab 703,Metro asGeometric 415,Mistral asStaccato 222,Melior asZapf Elliptical,Optima asZapf Humanist,Oscar asFormal 436,Old English Text asCloister Black,Peignot asExotic 350,Perpetua asLapidary 333,Plantin asAldine 721, Profil asDecorated 035,Palatino asZapf Calligraphic,Rockwell asGeometric Slabserif 712,Syntax asHumanist 531,Torino asIndustrial 736 andUnivers asZurich. The Bitstream font collection is most widely used through its inclusion with theCorelDRAW software, as well as other Corel products such as WordPerfect Office.
The company received extensive criticism for its strategy of cheaply offering digitisations of pre-existing typefaces that it had not designed. While technically not illegal, font designer John Hudson would describe its selling of large numbers of typefaces on CD at discount prices as "one of the worst instances of piracy in the history of type".[8]
Bitstream developed a number of fonts on its own, such as Amerigo, byGerard UngerCharter, byMatthew Carter, Carmina byGudrun Zapf, Chianti by Dennis Pasternak,Iowan Old Style byJohn Downer, Arrus byRichard Lipton and thefreewareBitstream Vera family of fonts.
One of their best known fonts is Swiss 721 BT, which is aHelvetica clone with condensed versions and a rounded version. It was among the first digitally available Swiss family typefaces, being designed for that purpose in 1982.
Another Bitstream product isFont Fusion, a fontrasterizing engine developed jointly with Type Solutions, Inc., which was later owned entirely by Bitstream.[9]
The[which?] multi-byte character set was namedBitstream International Character Set (BICS).
The company had a high level of involvement inBeOS, with older BeOS releases using a Bitstream renderer, and the latest development releases from 2001 using Font Fusion. The OS, including its freeware releases, included a large number of Bitstream fonts, including their clones ofTimes New Roman,Helvetica andCourier.
On December 2, 1998, Bitstream Inc. announced acquisition of all outstanding stock of Type Solutions, Inc. In addition, Sampo Kaasila, its founder and president and the creator ofTrueType, agreed to join Bitstream's team as Director of Research and Development.
In January 1999, Bitstream launchedMyFonts, an open marketplace offering fonts from various foundries and a forum where users could interact with type experts.[10]
In January 2009, Bitstream introduced theBOLT Browser, aJava ME-basedWeb browser for mobile phones. It was distributed free of charge to consumers and was built using the company'sThunderHawk mobile Web browsing technology formobile network operators and handset manufacturers. The product was discontinued by the end of 2011.[11]
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