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Bitstream Inc.

 
Hoover's Profile: Bitstream Inc.
(NASDAQ (CM):BITS)
Company Financials
Income Statement
Balance Sheet
Cash Flow Statement

Contact Information
Bitstream Inc.
245 1st St., 17th Fl.
Cambridge, MA 02142-1270
MA Tel. 617-497-6222
Toll Free 800-522-3668
Fax 617-868-0784

Type: Public
On the web: http://www.bitstream.com
Employees: 96
Employee growth: 33.3%

Bitstream counts on its fonts to keep business flowing. The company develops software that creates and manages typefaces. It has a library of more than 1,000 fonts and develops technology for delivering typographic capabilities to hardware, software, and Web applications. Bitstream also develops browser software for mobile handsets. Its products include the ThunderHawk browser, as well as text distribution applications (TrueDoc). Subsidiary Pageflex offers publishing software that designs and creates custom business documents based on customer profiles. Bitstream's MyFonts.com subsidiary offers a Web site for locating, testing, and purchasing more than 60,000 different fonts.

Key numbers for fiscal year ending December, 2008:
Sales: $24.0M
One year growth: 1.7%
Net income: $2.4M
Income growth: (40.7%)

Officers:
Chairman: Charles W. Ying
President, CEO, General Counsel, and Director: Anna M. Chagnon
VP and CFO: James P. (Jim) Dore

Competitors:
Monotype
Objectif Lune
Xerox

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Wikipedia: Bitstream Inc.
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Bitstream Inc.
Type Public (NASDAQBITS)
Founded 1981
Headquarters Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA
Key people Anna M. Chagnon, President and CEO
Industry Type foundry, Mobile phone web browsers
Employees 72[1]
Website www.bitstream.com

Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ:BITS) is a type foundry that produces digital typefaces (fonts). Founded in 1981 by Matthew Carter and Mike Parker among others, it claims to be the oldest such company. It is located in Marlborough, Massachusetts.

Besides building a library of "classic" fonts (usually under different names for trademark reasons), Bitstream has developed a number of fonts itself. The Bitstream font collection is most widely used through its inclusion with the CorelDRAW software. Bitstream also created the freeware Bitstream Vera family of fonts.

Another Bitstream product is Font Fusion, a font rasterizing engine developed jointly with Type Solutions.

The company had a high level of involvement in BeOS, with older BeOS releases using a now-outdated 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.

One of their best known fonts is Swiss 721 BT, which is a Helvetica clone with condensed versions and a rounded version that is closer to Comic Sans than a Swiss family font. It was among the first digitally available Swiss family typefaces, being designed for that purpose in 1982.

On December 2 1998, Bitstream Inc. announced acquisition of all outstanding stock of Type Solutions, Inc. In addition, Sampo Kaasila, founder and President of Type Solutions, Inc. (and creator of TrueType font technology), agreed to join Bitstream's team as Director of Research and Development, Type Solutions, to join John Collins, Bitstream's Vice President, Engineering and Chief Technology Officer, in leading Bitstream's research and development efforts for its type and technology products.

In January 2009, Bitstream introduced the BOLT Browser, a web browser for mobile phones including feature phones and smartphones that can run Java ME applications. The BOLT Browser is offered free of charge to consumers and is built using the company's ThunderHawk (web browser) mobile web browsing technology for Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers.

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