MathWorks facts for kids
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| Private | |
| Industry | Mathematical computing software |
| Founded | December 7, 1984 in Portola Valley, California, U.S. |
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| Headquarters |
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USA
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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| Products | MATLAB, Simulink |
| Revenue |  US$1.25 billion (2022) |
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Number of employees
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6,000 |
MathWorks is an American company that makes special computer programs. These programs help with math and computing. Their main products are called MATLAB and Simulink. These tools help people look at data and create computer models.
Contents
How MathWorks Started
The main program, MATLAB, was first made in the 1970s. A smart person named Cleve Moler created it. At that time, he was in charge of the computer science department at the University of New Mexico. MATLAB was free for people who worked in schools and universities.
Later, a student named Jack Little found MATLAB. He was studying electrical engineering at Stanford University. Jack Little and Steve Bangert rewrote the MATLAB program. They used a different computer language called C.
In 1984, Jack Little, Steve Bangert, and Cleve Moler started the company MathWorks. Jack Little ran the company from his house in Portola Valley, California. He would send the first customers computer programs on diskettes in food storage bags.
In February 1985, MathWorks sold its first order. They sold 10 copies of MATLAB for $500 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A few years later, Jack Little and the company moved to Massachusetts. There, Jack hired Jeanne O'Keefe to help make the business more organized. By 1997, MathWorks was doing very well. They made about $50 million and had around 380 employees.
In 1999, MathWorks moved to a new office area called Apple Hill in Natick, Massachusetts. They bought more buildings there in 2008 and 2009. Soon, they owned the whole campus. MathWorks grew even more in 2013. They bought the old headquarters of another company, Boston Scientific. This new place was also near their main office in Natick.
By 2018, the company had about 3,000 employees in Natick. They also said they made about $900 million in sales.
What MathWorks Makes
The company's two most important products are MATLAB and Simulink.
- MATLAB helps scientists, engineers, and programmers. They use it to look at and understand data. They also use it to create special computer instructions called algorithms.
- Simulink is a program that lets you design and test systems. It's like building a model of something before you make it in real life. This is called model-based design.
MATLAB and Simulink are used in many areas. These include making airplanes, cars, and other computer programs. MathWorks also makes other products like Polyspace, SimEvents, Stateflow, and ThingSpeak.
About the Company
Playing Fair in Business
Sometimes, companies need to make sure they are competing fairly. In 1999, the U.S. government looked into an agreement between MathWorks and another company called Wind River Systems. The government wanted to make sure they were following rules about fair competition. Both companies worked with the government to solve the issue.
In 2003, a court found that MathWorks's Simulink program used some ideas that belonged to another company, National Instruments. This was about how data diagrams worked.
In 2012, a group in Europe started to look into MathWorks. Some other companies said that MathWorks was not letting them create programs that could work well with MathWorks products. This investigation ended in 2014 without any charges.
The MathWorks Logo
The MathWorks logo is special. It shows how a thin, L-shaped sheet of material would vibrate. Imagine it's held tightly at its edges. This image comes from a math problem that Cleve Moler studied for his university degree.
Helping the Community
MathWorks helps students and communities in many ways.
The company sponsors many student engineering competitions every year. One example is EcoCAR. This competition helps students create advanced vehicle technology. It is supported by the United States Department of Energy and General Motors. MathWorks also helped pay for a math exhibit at the Science Museum in London.
MathWorks also has a website called MATLAB Central. It's a place where people who use their programs can ask questions and share computer code. There are over 145,000 questions and answers on MATLAB Central. The company also helps many schools and universities. They support STEM education. This means they help teach science, technology, engineering, and math. They even give money to MIT Open Courseware and MITx, which offer free online courses.
See also
In Spanish: MathWorks para niños
