The early years
The early years will not mean much to those outside the UK, as the computers we developed for were very UK centric.
For the first 12 years we didn't develop software for the early IBM PC, simply because it was a lousy architecture, lousy processor
and ran bad software (in our opinion at the time). It was successful for one reason only - the letters IBM. The Apple II computer was
much more up our street, but was too expensive in the UK, and didn't sell enough. Remember back in those days there was no Internet and
software had to be packaged and distributed the traditional way and so we couldn't consider a computer that didn't have any significant
UK market.
So the computers we developed for - the BBC Micro and later the Acorn 32-bit RISC based machines - were much more Apple like in many ways.
ROMs
The BBC Micro was unusual in that you could install ROM chips inside, and that's how we shipped our software. This has the great advantage
that the software became permanently installed in the computer, had instant start-up and required no RAM.
Xara (then called Computer Concepts) grew to become the largest developer for the Acorn computer - first the BBC Micro and then the Acorn
Risc based computers. The second time around (Archimedes) we had to start again from scratch, as we'd spent a year or two developing
Atari ST software. |
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The Atari ST
This was a revolutionary computer in its day. Perhaps the first affordable 32-bit architecture (68000 processor was a delight to work with,
compared to x86 based processors in IBM PCs). It had a Mac-like desktop. It had loads of RAM - 128KBytes to be exact. Isn't it extraordinary
to consider that 128k BYTES of memory was regarded as a large amount, and even more amazing to think that a great many software packages,
including word processors and even DTP packages could be written to work in that space!
We developed only a few packages for the Atari ST. The main one was Fast BASIC, a BBC-Basic like basic interpreter / compiler. BBC
Basic was widely regarded as one of the best Basic dialects around - clean and modular. It included an inline assembler, which was hugely
important for us because most of our programs were written in assembly language. The version we did for the Atari ST came on a ROM cartridge
that you plugged in the side. |
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Archimedes
We knew about Acorn's RISC developments from the very beginning. The BBC Micro used the 6502 8-bit processor which was very simple, but very
fast (for the time). Acorn wanted to find a 32-bit replacement and, for one reason and another, decided to develop their own brand new 32-bit
architecture, that had the simplicity of the 6502, but was true 32-bit. What they created was not only the first affordable 32-bit processor,
but the fastest chip around, by a large margin. It easily beat the rather poor 8086 16-bit processor that powered the IBM PC at the time.
So once Acorn announced their first computer, it was off Atari, and back to developing Acorn software. That computer was simply the most advanced,
from a hardware and software point of view, and we had to work on it.
We created a wide range of products for the Acorn Risc computers, including hardware products such as the LaserDirect, which was the world's
first sub £1000 600-dpi laser printer. In 1990 we also developed our own Postscript clone (ShowPage) which was the beginning of a line of products
taking us to Xara Designer Pro today.
But despite having world beating technology, poor management doomed Acorn. We could see this coming from the start and knew we would have
to switch platform in order to survive. |
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Why not the Apple Mac
So in the early 1990s we had to make a decision. Develop for Apple Mac or IBM PC? We knew about project Cairo (which become Windows95) and had
Windows NT, the direct predecessor to Windows XP. This was a very decent 32-bit operating system, and most of our objections to the PC had gone
by then. It had a good 32-bit OS, huge improvements to graphics and processor speed.
And Apple were in deep trouble. Steve Jobs had been kicked out of his company, and was developing the NeXT computer. Ask pretty much anyone at the
time what the future of Apple was, and the answer was pretty unanimous: it had no future. No one could have anticipated that eventually Steve Jobs
would get the company back and bring his NeXT software with him (which would eventually become the current Mac OSX ) and that he would transform Apple into a
company worth more than Microsoft and Intel combined.
So maybe we made a mistake in not developing for the Mac from day one. Are we going do it now?? There's no Mac version imminent but we're not saying never!
Windows
A couple of our products on the Acorn platform stood out - and won awards when compared against the competition on the Mac and PC. Impression, a
powerful DTP product, compared favourably with Quark Xpress; and Artworks a vector graphics product, competed well against very early versions of
CorelDRAW and Adobe Illustrator. Many Mac and Windows owners asked, sometimes begged us to port these products to their platform.
So project Camelot was started in the early nineties, which was a ground-up rewrite of Artworks, but designed to be able to provide all the features
of Impression our DTP package as well one day.
Xara was born
And this was when the company name changed to Xara - when we started working on PCs. The old name was not just boring, but there were a number of
other "Computer Concepts" companies around the world. Xara was going global and we had to have a new brand.
Where did the name come from? I saw a girl called Zara on TV and thought that was an unusual name. But decided to make it bit more unusual by putting
an X in place of the Z, so a bit like Xerox. This had the benefit of being short, unusual, most importantly trademarkable around the world, and one
where we could get the domain name. The downside is that we're always at the end of any alphabetical list!
Project Camelot
Originally released as Xara Studio, the marketing rights were snapped up by Corel (who had something like 90% market share in the Windows market at the time), and
re-branded and sold as CorelXARA. And although Corel wanted to buy the company or at least have access to the source code, we provided neither. Corel
had a simple marketing licence to the product, and so that's how CorelXARA came about.
But after 5 years of them not selling and promoting our product as we would have liked we came to a mutual agreement to terminate the deal. So Xara regained
all marketing rights to the product and started developing it again. That become Xara X, then Xara Xtreme and finally in two (classic and pro) versions Xara Photo & Graphic Designer and Designer Pro and the basis of Xara Web Designer.
MAGIX & International Expansion
In 2007 the company was purchased by the German multi-media company MAGIX AG. Xara continues as a separate company, but is now part of the MAGIX group and has seen rapid international expansion
as a result. We have the same world class team of developers working on the design products that are our strength, but benefit from the considerable marketing and development resources of MAGIX.
Xara titles are now available under the MAGIX brand
in German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Russian and Turkish, with more to come. Our software is also sold in retail
stores throughout Europe.
Take on the world
So what next? It's simple: we intend to offer our customers the best web and graphic design products in the world, all over the world!
Charles Moir
CEO and founder
Xara Group Ltd |
Product Timeline
| 1981 |
Several small utilities for the Acorn Atom |
Acorn Atom |
| 1981 |
Space Invaders |
Game |
Acorn Atom |
| 1982 |
Wordwise |
Word Processor |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Snake |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
SpaceHawks |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Code Race |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Asteriod Belt |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Dissasembler |
6502 programmer utility |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Logo 2 |
Logo graphics language |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Cube |
Rubik's cube |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Adventure |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Fruit Machine |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Sound Idea |
|
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Chess |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1982 |
Reversi |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Android Attack |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Games Galore |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Swarm |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Draughts |
Game |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Beebcalc |
Spreadsheet |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Graphics ROM |
Graphics utilities |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Disc Doctor |
Disc utility |
BBC Micro |
| 1983 |
Gremlin |
Programmer utility |
BBC Micro |
| 1984 |
Sidewise Extension Board |
Add extra ROMs |
BBC Micro |
| 1984 |
Caretaker |
Utility |
BBC Micro |
| 1984 |
Wordwise Plus |
Updated word processor with programming language |
BBC Micro |
| 1984 |
Printmaster |
Printing utility |
BBC Micro |
| 1984 |
Communicator |
Terminal emulator |
BBC Micro |
| 1984 |
Termi II |
Terminal emulator |
BBC Micro |
| 1985 |
Speech System |
Speech synthesiser |
BBC Micro |
| 1985 |
Acclerator |
BBC Basic compiler |
BBC Micro |
| 1985 |
Inter-Sheet |
Integrated Office suite |
BBC Micro |
| 1985 |
Inter-Chart |
Integrated Office suite |
BBC Micro |
| 1986 |
Inter-Word |
Integrated Office suite |
BBC Micro |
| 1986 |
Fast ASM |
68000 Assembler and editor |
Atari ST |
| 1986 |
Fast Basic |
BBC-like Basic interpreter / compiler |
Atari ST |
| 1986 |
Back Pack |
A set of general utilities |
Atari ST |
| 1987 |
Calligrapher |
DTP package - aborted |
Atari ST |
| 1987 |
Spellmaster |
Spell checker |
BBC Micro |
| 1987 |
Inter-Word |
Integrated Office suite |
Archimedes |
| 1987 |
Inter-Sheet |
Integrated Office suite |
Archimedes |
| 1987 |
Inter-Chart |
Integrated Office suite |
Archimedes |
| 1987 |
Wordwise Plus |
Word processor |
Archimedes |
| 1987 |
ROM podule |
Allow ROMs to be plugged into Archimedes |
Archimedes |
| 1987 |
Mega 3 |
Word, Sheet & Chart |
Archimedes |
| 1987 |
ARM Assembly Language |
book |
Archimedes |
| 1988 |
Inter-Base |
Integrated Office suite |
BBC Micro |
| 1988 |
Impression |
DTP package |
Archimedes |
| 1988 |
Spellmaster Z88 |
Text editor with spell check as you type. |
Sinclair Z88 |
| 1989 |
DTP at a glance |
Book |
BBC Micro |
| 1990 |
Impression 2 |
Updated DTP package |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
Impression Junior |
As it suggests |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
Equasor |
Equation editor |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
ShowPage |
Postscript emulator |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
LaserDirect |
Direct drive 600dpi laser printer |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
Scanlight |
Scanner |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
SpellMaster |
Spell checker |
Archimedes |
| 1990 |
Fax Pack |
Fax software and hardware |
Archimedes |
| 1991 |
Impression Bizz Supplement |
supplement to Impression |
Archimedes |
| 1991 |
Compression |
General ZIP like compression utility |
Archimedes |
| 1991 |
Impression Borders |
Fancy borders for frames |
Archimedes |
| 1991 |
Font discs |
Font packs |
Archimedes |
| 1992 |
ArtWorks |
Vector graphics - direct ancestor of Xara Designer |
Archimedes |
| 1992 |
Colourcard |
Graphics card |
Archimedes |
| 1992 |
TurboDrivers |
Printer drivers |
Archimedes |
| 1992 |
Canon inkjet printers |
Printer & printer drivers |
Archimedes |
| 1993 |
A3000 expansion box |
Extra expansion card capacity |
Archimedes |
| 1993 |
Hawk V9 |
Video capture |
Archimedes |
| 1993 |
Chroma Genlock |
Chrome locking video board |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Impression Style |
Word processor style DTP |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Impression Publisher |
Heavyweight DTP |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Audioworks |
Sound editing utility |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Wordworks |
Dictionary / Thesarus |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
MacFS |
Mac disc reading utility |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
ClipArt CDs |
clipart from Artworks contests |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Graphics Loaders |
Import / export filters |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Eagle M2 |
Video capture board |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
ScanLight Video |
Video capture board |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
MidiMax |
Midi expansion card |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
GreyHawk |
Greyscale video capture |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Pioneer CD drives |
CD Rom drive |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Impression Publisher Plus |
Even more heavyweight DTP |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Formulix |
Advanced formula / equation editor |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Lark card |
Sound card |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
TV Tuner |
TV tuner card |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Movie Majic |
Movie editing software |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Wacom ArtPads |
Tablet and driver software |
Archimedes |
| 1994 |
Xara Studio |
Vector graphics |
Windows |
| 1995 |
Eidoscope |
Video editing software |
Archimedes |
| 1995 |
CorelXARA |
Corel branded Xara Studio |
Windows |
| 1995 |
Xara Networks |
Corporate ISP |
All |
| 1996 |
Various Artworks tools (Easox pressure, Arranger, Precision, later Hatch) |
Archimedes |
| 1996 |
Text Loaders & Savers |
RTF & Word Perfect loaders/savers |
Archimedes |
| 1996 |
Webster |
Cut down vector graphics |
Windows |
| 1997 |
Xara3D |
3D text & animations |
Windows |
| 1998 |
Xara Webstyle |
Template based web graphics |
Windows |
| 2000 |
Xara X |
New CorelXARA under our own brand |
Windows |
| 2001 |
Xara Online |
Online Web Services |
All |
| 2002 |
Menu Maker |
DHTML menus for websites |
Windows |
| 2003 |
ScreenMaker |
3D screen saver maker |
Windows |
| 2006 |
Xara Xtreme LX |
Open Source Xara Xtreme |
Linux |
| 2006 |
Xara Xtreme Pro |
Pro version of Xara X |
Windows |
| 2007 |
MAGIX |
Xara titles begin to appear in many different languages under the MAGIX brand |
Windows |
| 2009 |
Xara Web Designer |
New web design title |
Windows |
| 2010 |
Photo & Graphic Designer |
Xtreme, renamed and updated |
Windows |
| 2010 |
Xara Designer Pro |
Xtreme Pro, renamed and updated |
Windows |
| 2011 |
Web Designer Premium |
Pro version of Web Designer |
Windows | |
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