Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates {{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}}Template:Template otherTemplate:Main other{{#invoke:Check for clobbered parameters|check|nested=1|template=Infobox company|cat=Template:Main other|name; company_name|logo; company_logo|logo_alt; alt|trade_name; trading_name|former_names; former_name|type; company_type|predecessors; predecessor|successors; successor|foundation; founded|founders; founder|defunct; dissolved|hq_location; location|hq_location_city; location_city|hq_location_country; location_country|num_locations; locations|areas_served; area_served|net_income; profit|net_income_year; profit_year|owners; owner |homepage; website }}{{#invoke:Check for unknown parameters|check|unknown=Template:Main other|preview=Page using Template:Infobox company with unknown parameter "_VALUE_" | ignoreblank=y | alt | area_served | areas_served | assets | assets_year | aum | brands | company_logo | company_name | company_type | defunct | dissolved | divisions | embed | equity | equity_year | fate | footnotes | former_name | former_names | foundation | founded | founder | founders | genre | homepage | hq_location | hq_location_city | hq_location_country | incorporated | image | image_alt | image_caption | image_size | image_upright | income_year | industry | ISIN | key_people | location | location_city | location_country | locations | logo | logo_alt | logo_caption | logo_class | logo_size | logo_upright | members | members_year | module | name | native_name | native_name_lang | net_income | net_income_year | num_employees | num_employees_year | num_locations | num_locations_year | operating_income | owner | owners | parent | predecessor | predecessors | production | production_year | products | profit | profit_year | rating | ratio | revenue | revenue_year | romanized_name | services | subsid | successor | successors | traded_as | trade_name | trading_name | type | website| qid | fetchwikidata | suppressfields | noicon | nocat | demo | categories }} The MathWorks, Inc. is an American privately held corporation that specializes in mathematical computing software. Its major products include MATLAB and Simulink, which support data analysis and simulation.
HistoryEdit
MATLAB was created in the 1970s by Cleve Moler, who was chairman of the computer science department at the University of New Mexico at the time. It was a free tool for academics. Jack Little, who would eventually set up the company, came across the tool while he was a graduate student in electrical engineering at Stanford University.<ref name=Globe1997/><ref name=MolerIEEE>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Little and Steve Bangert rewrote the code for MATLAB in C while they were colleagues at an engineering firm.<ref name=Globe1997/><ref name="Nagar"/> They founded MathWorks along with Moler in 1984,<ref name="Nagar">Template:Cite book</ref> with Little running it out of his house in Portola Valley, California.<ref name="Higham">Template:Cite news</ref> Little would mail diskettes in baggies (food storage bags) to the first customers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The company sold its first order, 10 copies of MATLAB, for $500 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in February 1985.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> A few years later, Little and the company moved to Massachusetts.<ref name="Higham"/><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> There, Little hired Jeanne O'Keefe, an experienced computer executive, to help formalize the business.<ref name=Globe1997/> By 1997, MathWorks was profitable, claiming revenue of around $50 million, and had around 380 employees.<ref name=Globe1997>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 1999, MathWorks relocated to the Apple Hill office complex in Natick, Massachusetts, purchasing additional buildings in the complex in 2008 and 2009,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> ultimately occupying the entire campus. MathWorks expanded further in 2013 by buying Boston Scientific's old headquarters campus, which is near to MathWorks' headquarters in Natick.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
By 2018, the company had around 3,000 employees in Natick and said it had revenues of around $900 million.<ref name=Globe2018>Template:Cite news</ref>
On May 18, 2025, MathWorks was the target of a ransomware attack which took down online applications for over a week. <ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
ProductsEdit
The company's two lead products are MATLAB, which provides an environment for scientists, engineers and programmers to analyze and visualize data and develop algorithms, and Simulink, a graphical and simulation environment for model-based design of dynamic systems.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> MATLAB and Simulink are used in aerospace, automotive, software and other fields.<ref name="WBJO">Template:Cite news</ref> The company's other products include Polyspace, SimEvents, Stateflow, and ThingSpeak.
Corporate affairsEdit
Intellectual property and competitionEdit
In 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against MathWorks and Wind River Systems alleging that an agreement between them violated antitrust laws. The agreement in question stipulated that the two companies agreed to stop competing in the field of dynamic control system design software, with MathWorks alone selling Wind River's MATRIXx Software and that Wind River would stop all research and development and sales in that field. Both companies eventually settled with the Department of Justice and agreed to sell the MATRIXx software to a third party. MathWorks had total sales of $200 million in 2001, with dynamic control system design software accounting for half of those sales.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
MathWorks's Simulink software was found to have infringed 3 patents from National Instruments related to data flow diagrams in 2003, a decision which was confirmed by a court of appeal in 2004.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2011, MathWorks sued AccelerEyes for copyright infringement in one court, and patent and trademark infringement in another. AccelerEyes accepted consent decrees in both cases before the trials began.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2012, the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into MathWorks after competitors alleged that MathWorks refused to grant licenses to its intellectual property that would allow people to create software with interoperability with its products.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The case was closed in 2014 without filing any charge.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
LogoEdit
The logo represents the first vibrational mode of a thin L-shaped membrane, clamped at the edges, and governed by the wave equation, which was the subject of Moler's thesis.<ref name=MolerIEEE/>
CommunityEdit
The company annually sponsors a number of student engineering competitions, including EcoCAR, an advanced vehicle technology competition created by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and General Motors (GM).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> MathWorks sponsored the mathematics exhibit at London's Science Museum.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In the coding community, MathWorks hosts MATLAB Central, an online exchange where users ask and answer questions and share code. MATLAB Central currently houses around than 145,000 questions in its MATLAB Answers database.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The company actively supports numerous academic institutions to advance STEM education (primarily through the use of MathWorks products), including giving funding to MIT Open Courseware and MITx.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>