Company History

The early years

ARTIS Software started in 1989 as a collaboration of Wolfgang Ante and Alexander Beza on a graphics software project for ATARI computers. This software was simply called ARTIS and was developed up until version 4. We sold it in different markets, including Austria, Germany, and the US (where it was called Prism Paint II). Additionally we created some more software for ATARI computers, like a game pack for the ATARI Portfolio.

The good old days

In 1994 we shifted our focus to the Apple Macintosh. Alexander left ARTIS Software to finish his studies. Since 1998 he holds a diploma in architecture. Wolfgang started the development of a texture application in 1995, working on it full-time in 1996.

In 1997 Wolfgang's TextureMagic was chosen from 225 candidates to be one of the 20 most-promising new apps to be shown at the Developer Greenhouse at Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

One of the contacts made at MacWorld developed into a partnership with Extensis in 1998: Wolfgang created the Photoshop plug-in called PhotoTexture. This was one of the new plug-ins of the Extensis PhotoTools 3.0 which won the Macworld Editor's Choice Award for Best Graphics Utility 1999.

The bubble and its aftermath

The internet bubble also reached ARTIS Software, and this marked a departure from the Mac to create some long forgotten internet software. Money was king, and this meant having a fancy office in downtown Vienna and even writing Windows software (yuck!).

When the bubble burst ARTIS was refocused on writing software for the Mac again. The operating system of the Mac had just turned X, and there was plenty of excitement, though not much of a market yet.

TextureMagic was ported to Mac OS X and the first new product for X was the popular collection called ARTIS Screen Tools. Another application started in that time was ARTIS Simple List.

In 2003 ARTIS teamed up with The Iconfactory to create xScope, a pack of tools for web and graphics designers, based on the ARTIS Screen Tools.

The dark ages

At the end of 2003 money was getting tight, and Wolfgang got married, so he accepted the opportunity to become the head of the web development department at freecom internet services, making ARTIS a side business for the following two years.

Because Wolfgang's work at freecom involved a lot of PHP programming, out of necessity the PHP Function Index was born.

xScope went on to get rave reviews and even won the Macuser Award for Best Graphics Utility in 2004. Unfortunately there was not much time to advance the software.

The modern times

Beginning with 2006 ARTIS is a full-time business again, this time with a solid Mac OS X market, and very interesting new products coming. If you want to know how the story continues, tune in at the ARTIS Blog and read the news while they are developing.