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From the beginning, J.J. and Jeremy Allaire have taken the long view about their software company, Allaire Corp.
Entrepreneurial dreams of a quick sell or explosive initial public offering were not for them. The Minnesota brothers had two visions that helped them build, within four short years, one of the most powerful companies in the software industry.
First: From the early days of 1995, when J.J. took $18,000 in savings and began developing the software that would become ColdFusion, the Allaires envisioned that the Internet would replace other media, including operating systems, as a computing platform.
That helped them become "first to market" with a package that helped businesses like Lockheed, Boeing, AT&T and Intel begin using the World Wide Web for everything from customer websites to internal communications and other corporate applications.
Second: Once it became clear in 1996 that other companies were nipping at Allaire's heels in the applications market, the brothers realized they needed to grow. That meant moving their dozen employees out of St. Paul while bringing in cash and outside help to run the firm.
"We wanted to build a software company for the long-term an institution...