Marc Canter

**Marc A. Canter** (born January 13, 1957) is one of the co-founders and former chairman of MacroMind, the predecessor of Macromedia, which was acquired by Adobe Systems in December 2005.

## Early life and education

In 1975, Canter entered Oberlin College in Ohio for his undergraduate studies. He also attended the Art Institute of Chicago and performed with a band named Pitch in the late 1970s.

## Career

In the early 1980s, Canter entered graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago and worked at Bally Midway, where he worked on the music for *Ms. Gorf*, *Professor Pac-Man*, and *Spy Hunter*.

### MacroMind

Canter co-founded MacroMind in Chicago, Illinois with Jay Fenton and Mark Stephen Pierce in April 1984. His development of multimedia creation tools led to him being called the "godfather of multimedia". In November 1990, Canter relinquished his role as chairman of MacroMind to focus on developing standards and technology. Electronic Arts co-founder Tim Mott took over Canter's role.

In 1991, Mott became CEO of the newly-merged MacroMind-Paracomp. Canter said that he found out that he had been ousted when he discovered that no office nor parking space had been assigned to him at the company's new address. At the time of his departure, his shares of Macromedia were worth US$10 million.

### After MacroMind

About a month later in early 1992, Canter received a call from Steve Jobs, who had left Apple and founded NeXT. Jobs asked Canter to develop for their new system. However, Canter declined because NeXT only had monochrome computer models that did not support color at the time. He has since become a start-up adviser.

## Personal life

Canter was previously married to Devorah Samet, a fellow student from the Art Institute of Chicago who was also one of the original co-founders of MacroMind; they have 3 children. After returning to Ohio, Canter married Lisa Brewer, a manager at McKesson Corporation; they have 2 daughters. In 2017, Canter contended with allegations of harassment by past colleagues.

## References

1. ↑ Scripting News by Dave Winer. 2000-01-13.
2. ↑ Marc Canter's Work and Careers by Chris Jacques, *Intro. to Multimedia*. Archived 2006-04-23.
3. ↑ Adobe Completes Acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe Systems. 2005-12-05. Archived 2005-12-07.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The New Stack Makers: Marc Canter and the Days Before Macromedia by Luke Lefler, The New Stack. 2014-11-04.
5. ↑ The Pitch, Nuts To Soup (NTS) Live. 2016-05-13.
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 O’Brien: Valley’s one-time godfather of multimedia is leaving for Ohio by Chris O'Brien, *San Jose Mercury News*. 2009-07-02.
7. ↑ *The Birth of MacroMind* by Marc Canter, p.63. Festival Ars Electronica. 2003-08. Archived 2003-09-20.
8. ↑ Macromind Proposes Media Format by Paul Worthington, *InfoWorld*, p.5. 1990-11-05.
9. ↑ Merger builds multimedia powerhouse by Jeannette Borzo, *InfoWorld*. 1992-03-09.
10. ↑ Marc Canter with Memories of Scoble, Winer and The Internet of Things by Luke Lefler, The New Stack. 2014-11-18.
11. ↑ What Are Some Great Stories About Steve Jobs?, *Forbes*. 2011-10-06.
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment by Katie Benner, *The New York Times*. 2017-06-30.
13. ↑ Artist Bio, Devorah Samet Canter Ceramic Sculptures. Accessed 2020-07-05.
14. ↑ History by John Henry Thompson. Accessed 2019-12-29.
15. ↑ Marc Canter and his wife decry "fake news," attack victim, say women who wear "plunging necklines" should expect to be harassed by Paul Bradley Carr, Pando. 2017-07-06.

## External links

* Marc Canter at Crunchbase
* Marc Canter at the Internet Movie Database
* Marc Canter at LinkedIn
* Marc Canter at TechCrunch
* Marc Canter at Twitter
* Marc Canter at YouTube
* Marc Canter at the Macromedia Wiki
* Marc Canter at Wikipedia