Charlie Jackson is an American computer software entrepreneur who founded Silicon Beach Software in 1984 and co-founded FutureWave Software in 1993. FutureWave created the first version of what is now Adobe Flash. He was an early investor in Wired magazine, Outpost.com, Streamload and Angelic Pictures. Jackson is currently founder/CEO of Silicon Beach Software, which develops and publishes application software for Windows 10.
Jackson founded Silicon Beach Software in 1984. The company developed and published Macintosh software. It was best known for its graphics editors SuperPaint, Digital Darkroom and the multimedia authoring application SuperCard. Silicon Beach was acquired by Aldus Corporation in 1990. That year he was named Entrepreneur of the Year in San Diego for High Tech.
In 1984, Jackson also founded the San Diego Macintosh User Group.
Jackson co-founded FutureWave Software with Jonathan Gay in 1993. [1] FutureWave developed and published FutureSplash Animator. Macromedia acquired FutureWave in 1996 and renamed the product Flash 1.0, which in turn became Adobe Flash when Macromedia was acquired by Adobe Systems. [2]
Since late 2009, Jackson has been a mentor for San Diego sessions of the Founder Institute. [3]
In 2015, using the name Silicon Beach Software again, he founded a company to develop graphics software for Windows 10. The company's first product is SaviDraw.
Although no longer an active seed investor, Jackson made some notable investments in the 1990s. In 1993, he and Nicholas Negroponte were the two seed investors in Wired magazine. [4] In 1994, Jackson loaned Wired Ventures the money that allowed the company to start up HotWired, the first commercial web magazine.
Jackson was the seed investor in Outpost.com, an early online reseller of computer equipment. Outpost.com gained some notoriety for its TV ads in which gerbils were shot out of a cannon and wolves attacked a high school marching band.
Jackson was the first investor in Angelic Pictures, Inc.
Jackson was the first investor in Streamload, an online media storage and retrieval company that was subsequently renamed Nirvanix and he was the first investor in Pacific Coast Software, publisher of WebCatalog, an e-commerce package. [5]
Jackson is a principal in Angelic Pictures, Inc., a movie production company. He has been an executive producer of Angelic's movies, The Month of August, Hole in One: American Pie Plays Golf, Beach Bar, Music High, La Migra, Fearless and Space Samurai: Oasis.
Jackson founded Silicon Beach Software in 2015. It is a developer/publisher of multimedia software for Windows 10.
Jackson owned two small businesses in San Diego, CA. Epic Volleyball Club was a junior volleyball organization which trained approximately 400 athletes annually. VolleyHut.com was an online reseller of volleyball equipment. In 2000, VolleyHut challenged Amazon.com on its use of patents. Both businesses were shut down after pandemic lockdowns.
Jackson (born 1948) grew up in Imperial Beach, California. As a teenager, he also spent three years in Istanbul, Turkey, where he earned a B.E.P.C. degree from a French school. Jackson graduated from Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach in 1967, and was later inducted into the inaugural class of the Sweetwater Union High School District Hall of Fame in 2001. [6] [7] He earned a BA degree in Near Eastern Studies from UCLA in 1972, a master's degree in linguistics from San Diego State in 1978 and a C.Phil. in linguistics from UCSD in 1980.
Jackson was an active duty Marine Corps officer from 1972 to 1976 and Reserve officer from 1976 to 1989.
Jackson's sporting background is varied and extensive. While in Istanbul, he won the county youth championship in pole vault. In high school, he competed in cross country and track and field.
At UCLA, Jackson was a letter winner in soccer and lightweight rowing. His senior year he was co-captain of the lightweight rowing team.
In the Marine Corps, Jackson became a competitive rifle and pistol shooter, earning the Marine Corps' highest award for rifle shooting, the Distinguished badge. In 1978, he was the High Marine at the National Championships for Service Rifle, held at Camp Perry, Ohio.
In the '90s, Jackson returned to competitive shooting. In 1993 and 1994, he earned a spot on the US National Team in Rapid Fire Pistol and competed internationally. [8] In 1996, his three-man team won the U.S. National Championship in Rapid Fire Pistol.
In 1994, Jackson attended the World Masters Games in Brisbane, Australia, where over 24,000 athletes competed for World Championship titles in their respective age groups. In the 45 - 49 age group, Jackson won Gold medals in Rapid Fire Pistol and 4-man Beach Volleyball and a Silver medal in 2-man Beach Volleyball.
From 1997 to 2000, Jackson served on the board of USA Volleyball, chairing the Olympic Beach Volleyball Committee. Jackson was a member of the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team in the capacity of Assistant Team Leader, Beach Volleyball.
In 2000 and 2001, Jackson owned and operated Beach Volleyball America (BVA), a U.S. professional beach volleyball tour.
From 1999 to 2021, Jackson owned and operated Epic Volleyball Club, a junior club in the San Diego area.
Adobe Flash is a discontinued multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich internet applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players.
Aldus Corporation was an American software company best known for its pioneering desktop publishing software. PageMaker, the company's most well-known product, ushered in the modern era of desktop computers such as the Macintosh seeing widespread use in the publishing industry. Paul Brainerd, the company's co-founder, coined the term desktop publishing to describe this paradigm. The company also originated the Tag Image File Format (TIFF) file format, widely used in the digital graphics profession.
Macromedia, Inc., was an American graphics, multimedia, and web development software company (1992–2005) headquartered in San Francisco, California, that made products such as Flash and Dreamweaver. It was purchased by its rival Adobe Systems on December 3, 2005.
Adobe Authorware was an elearning authoring tool with its own interpreted, flowchart-based, graphical programming language. Authorware was used for creating interactive elearning programs that could integrate a range of multimedia content, particularly electronic educational technology applications. The flowchart model differentiated Authorware from other authoring tools, such as Adobe Flash and Adobe Director, which rely on a visual stage, time-line and script structure.
Adobe Creative Suite (CS) is a discontinued software suite of graphic design, video editing, and web development applications developed by Adobe Systems.
SWF is a defunct Adobe Flash file format that was used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.
Adobe Shockwave is a discontinued multimedia platform for building interactive multimedia applications and video games. Developers originate content using Adobe Director and publish it on the Internet. Such content could be viewed in a web browser on any computer with the Shockwave Player plug-in installed. MacroMind originated the technology; Macromedia acquired MacroMind and developed it further, releasing Shockwave Player in 1995. Adobe then acquired Shockwave with Macromedia in 2005. Shockwave supports raster graphics, basic vector graphics, 3D graphics, audio, and an embedded scripting language called Lingo.
Adobe Flash Player is a discontinued computer program for viewing multimedia content, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on the Adobe Flash platform. It can run from a web browser as a browser plug-in or independently on supported devices. Originally created by FutureWave under the name FutureSplash Player, it was renamed to Macromedia Flash Player after Macromedia acquired FutureWave in 1996. After Adobe acquired Macromedia in 2005, it was developed and distributed by Adobe as Adobe Flash Player. It is currently developed and distributed by Zhongcheng for users in China, and by Harman International for enterprise users outside of China, in collaboration with Adobe.
Silicon Beach Software, Inc., was an early American developer of software products for the Macintosh personal computer. It was founded in San Diego, California, in 1984 by Charlie Jackson and his wife Hallie. Jackson later co-founded FutureWave Software with Jonathan Gay. FutureWave produced the first version of what is now Adobe Flash. Although Silicon Beach Software began as a publisher of game software, it also published what was called "productivity software" at the time.
Mar Vista Senior High (MVH) in Imperial Beach, California, United States, is a high school established in 1951.
Bruce R. Chizen is an American technology executive. He was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Adobe Systems from 2000 to 2007.
Rob Burgess is a Canadian executive in the technology industry. He was the chief executive officer of Macromedia Inc. from 1996 to 2005 and chairman from 1997 to 2005. Prior to that, he was CEO of Alias Research from 1991 to 1995.
Adobe Director was a multimedia application authoring platform created by Macromedia and managed by Adobe Systems until its discontinuation.
FutureWave Software, Inc. was a software development company based in San Diego, California. The company was co-founded by Charlie Jackson and Jonathan Gay on January 22, 1993. VP of Marketing was Linda Michelle Alsip, who also came from Silicon Beach Software, then Aldus Corporation.
Jonathan Gay is an American computer programmer and software entrepreneur based in Northern California. Gay co-founded FutureWave Software in 1993. For a decade, he was the main programmer and visionary of Flash, an animation editor for web pages. He founded Software as Art, which was later renamed Greenbox, which made energy management solutions for the home.
VolleyHut.com is an online retailer of volleyball products. In 2000, VolleyHut was among several companies that protested strongly against Amazon.com's patent relating to affiliate programs. Company owner Charlie Jackson challenged Amazon.com, saying "I have a small e-commerce site, VolleyHut.com, that sells volleyball equipment. I have an affiliate relationship with Volleycentral.com. I will continue to maintain the affiliate program, despite your patent. The reason is that I know you will not try to actually stop me, because your patent will not hold up in court if I decide to fight it, which I would. So, now you have been notified that someone is violating your patent. What are you going to do about it?" Amazon.com took no action against VolleyHut.
Nirvanix is an American-based provider of business phone systems, VoIP services, hosted PBX, SIP Trunks, and cloud storage services headquartered in San Diego, California, United States. The company offers a variety of business phone solutions for small, medium as well as enterprise businesses. It also has a strong presence in public, hybrid and private cloud storage services with usage-based pricing. Based on previous service companies founded in 1998, Nirvanix shut down in October 2013. In July 2021 Nirvanix re-entered the business with $12 million funding.
Adobe FreeHand is a discontinued computer application for creating two-dimensional vector graphics oriented primarily to professional illustration, desktop publishing and content creation for the Web. FreeHand was similar in scope, intended market, and functionality to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Designer Pro. Because of FreeHand's dedicated page layout and text control features, it also compares to Adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress. Professions using FreeHand include graphic design, illustration, cartography, fashion and textile design, product design, architects, scientific research, and multimedia production.
Adobe Animate is a multimedia authoring and computer animation program developed by Adobe.
John C. "Bud" Colligan is a community activist, social entrepreneur, investor and company builder. He was appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom as his senior advisor for international affairs and trade in March, 2019. He is co-founder of the Monterey Bay Economic Partnership (MBEP), co-founder of the non-profit community-development organization Pacific Community Ventures, former partner at Accel Partners, a global venture capital firm, and former chairman and CEO of Macromedia, a multimedia software company.