The Omni Group is an American software company that develops software for themacOS,iOS, andwatchOS platforms. The Omni Group was informally founded as aNEXTSTEP consulting company in 1989 byWil Shipley, who immediately brought on Ken Case and Tim Wood. The three incorporated together under the nameOmni Development, Inc. in 1993, because the name "Omni Group" was taken by another Seattle firm. Omni initially produced custom database software for the NEXTSTEP platform for clients such as theWilliam Morris Agency andMcCaw Cellular Communications (thenCingular Wireless; nowAT&T Inc.). During this period they also ported a number of games to NEXTSTEP, then later toMac OS X (after Apple acquired NeXT in 1997). Around 2000 the company decided to start focusing on their own consumer applications for the Mac, and as of 2004 the vast majority of their revenue came from their consumer products.
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Company type | Private |
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Industry | Computer software |
Founded | 1989 |
Headquarters | Seattle,Washington, U.S. |
Key people | Ken Case, Tim Wood |
Products | macOS software, see#Products, below |
Website | omnigroup |
In 2003, Ken Case took over as the chief officer of Omni, and in March 2004 Wil Shipley left with another Omni employee, interface designerMike Matas, to formDelicious Monster. Matas later left for Apple.
The Omni Group also administers severalmailing lists related to macOS and software development. They also provide several frameworks forCocoa software development under anopen source license.
OmniGraffle andOmniOutliner have wonMacworld Editors' Choice Awards. At the MacintoshWorldwide Developers Conference in 2001, OmniWeb 4.0 won twoApple Design Awards: "Best Mac OS X User Experience" and "Best New Mac OS X Product."[citation needed]
In 2002, OmniGraffle 2.0 won two more Apple Design Awards.[citation needed]
Products
editProductivity
edit- OmniDazzle
- OmniDictionary: a discontinued dictionary app that uses theDICT protocol.
- OmniDiskSweeper
- OmniGraffle
- OmniGraphSketcher
- OmniOutliner
- OmniPlan
- OmniPresence: folder syncing via OmniSync or WebDAV server
- OmniWeb
- OmniFocus
Frameworks
editThe Omni Group uses manyframeworks in their applications,[1] and releases them under anopen source license.[2] Most of the frameworks are dependent on the macOS platform, and requireXcode 2.3 and thusTiger.
- OmniAppKit
- OmniBase
- OmniFoundation
- OmniHTML
- OmniNetworking
- Omni Web Framework
Games
editAs users of a platform that was not targeted by commercial porting houses, the Omni Group historically didsource ports of games for NeXTStep/OpenSteppro bono, especially maintenance updates ofid games. They continued to do so during the transition throughRhapsody into macOS, catching the eye of the existing Macintosh games industry in the process, and were then contracted to port a number of games commercially.
- Activision Anthology Remix
- Alchemy Deluxe
- Aliens versus Predator 2
- Big Money! Deluxe
- Doom
- Doom II: Hell on Earth
- Fallout
- Fallout 2
- Freedom Force
- Giants: Citizen Kabuto
- Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.²
- Incoming
- No One Lives Forever 2: A Spy in H.A.R.M.'s Way
- Oni (Cocoa)
- Quake
- Quake II
- Quake III: Arena
- Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix
References
editExternal links
edit- Official website
- "OmniWeb Wins Two OS X Apple Design Awards". Mac Observer. Jun 4, 2001.