Allaire started in May 1995 in Minnesota with one young programmer and one tricky problem: web pages were static, and businesses wanted them to talk to databases. JJ Allaire wrote ColdFusion, a simple tag language that pulled data into a page on the fly. Companies used it to build online stores, catalogs and intranets. By January 1999, when Allaire went public, it had moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Lotus founder Mitch Kapor on its board.

Brothers and a Tag Language

Joseph J. Allaire founded the company in May 1995 and ran it as chief executive until January 1997. His brother Jeremy joined him to build the business. ColdFusion's pitch was speed. A designer who knew HTML could learn a few extra tags and build a working web application in days. Allaire sold the server software and the tools to write for it. Customers listed in its prospectus included Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Lucent and UPS.

Twenty Dollars to Macromedia

Allaire priced its IPO at $20 a share on January 22, 1999, selling 2.5 million shares, and sold more stock that September. Microsoft, Sun and open-source tools crowded the market for web servers. In January 2001 Allaire agreed to merge with Macromedia, the maker of Flash and Dreamweaver. The deal closed in March 2001. ColdFusion lived on under Macromedia, and later Adobe.

Cover: The First Frost, Peter Henry Emerson. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for first frost (cold fusion).