| Bitstream Inc. | |
| Type: | Public |
| Traded As: | NASDAQ: |
| Location: | Marlborough, Massachusetts, United States |
| Fate: | Acquired by Monotype |
| Key People: | Amos Kaminski (chairman and Interim CEO) |
| Num Employees: | 96[1] |
| Industry: | Type foundry, mobile phone web browsers |
Bitstream Inc. was an American type foundry that produced digital typefaces. It was founded in 1981 by Matthew Carter, Mike Parker, Cherie Cone, and Rob Friedman, all former employees of the Mergenthaler Linotype Company.[2] It was located in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The font business, including MyFonts, was acquired by Monotype Imaging in March 2012.[3] [4] The remainder of the business, responsible for Pageflex and Bolt Browser, was spun off to a new entity named Marlborough Software Development Holdings Inc.[5] [6] It was later renamed Pageflex, Inc following a successful management buyout in December 2013.[7]
Bitstream created a library of "classic" fonts (usually under different names for trademark reasons) in digital form. For example, Times Ten was released as Dutch 801, Akzidenz-Grotesk as Gothic 725, Antique Olive as Incised 901, Bembo as Aldine 401, Berthold Block as Gothic 821, Bodoni Campanile as Modern 735, Choc as Staccato 555, Eurostile as Square 721, Frutiger as Humanist 777, Gill Sans as Humanist 521, Kabel as Geometric 231, Memphis as GeoSlab 703, Metro as Geometric 415, Optima as Zapf Humanist, Oscar as Formal 436, Peignot as Exotic 350, Plantin as Aldine 721, Profil as Decorated 035, Syntax as Humanist 531, Torino as Industrial 736 and Univers as Zurich. The Bitstream font collection is most widely used through its inclusion with the CorelDRAW 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 Charter, by Matthew Carter, Iowan Old Style by John Downer and the freeware Bitstream Vera family of fonts.
One of their best known fonts is Swiss 721 BT, which is a Helvetica 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 is Font Fusion, a font rasterizing engine developed jointly with Type Solutions, Inc., which was later owned entirely by Bitstream.[9]
The multi-byte character set was named Bitstream International Character Set (BICS).
The company had a high level of involvement in BeOS, 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 of Times New Roman, Helvetica and Courier.
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 of TrueType, agreed to join Bitstream's team as Director of Research and Development.
In March 2000, Bitstream launched MyFonts, an open marketplace offering fonts from various foundries.
In January 2009, Bitstream introduced the BOLT Browser, a Java ME-based Web browser for mobile phones. It was distributed free of charge to consumers and was built using the company's ThunderHawk mobile Web browsing technology for mobile network operators and handset manufacturers. The product was discontinued by the end of 2011.[10]