Nero AG (known as Ahead Software AG until 2005) is a German
computer software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications.
The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
company that is especially well known for its
CD/
DVD/
BD burning suite, ''
Nero Burning ROM
Nero Burning ROM, commonly called Nero, is an optical disc authoring program from Nero AG. The software is part of the Nero Multimedia Suite but is also available as a stand-alone product. It is used for burning and copying optical media such ...
''. The company's main product is Nero 2019, a piece of software that comprises burning, file conversion, media management, and video editing functions and was updated on an annual basis, though new releases have not occurred for several years.
History
Richard Lesser founded the company as ''Ahead Software GmbH'' in 1995. The company changed its name (and legal form) to ''Ahead Software AG'' in 2001, and again to Nero AG in 2005.
The Nero Group includes foreign
subsidiaries
A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidiary company. Unl ...
in
Glendale, California
Glendale is a city located primarily in the Verdugo Mountains region, with a small portion in the San Fernando Valley, of Los Angeles County, California, United States. It is located about north of downtown Los Angeles.
As of 2024, Glendale ha ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
(''Nero Inc.'', founded in 2001), in
Yokohama
is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...
,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
(''Nero K.K.'', founded in 2004), and
Hangzhou
Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
(''Nero Ltd.'', founded in 2007). The USA and Japan operations are sales offices, while the Chinese subsidiary operates exclusively to provide internal development services for the company.
In May 2007, it was announced that the Luxembourg-based firm ''Agrippina International SàrL'' owned more than 25% of Nero AG shares.
In 2009, the company established two additional subsidiaries in Germany: ''Nero Development and Services GmbH'' and ''Nero EMEA Sales GmbH''.
In 2014, the company moved the operations and headquarters of Nero AG, as well as of the two group companies ''Nero Development and Services GmbH'' and ''Nero EMEA Sales GmbH'', to
Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe ( ; ; ; South Franconian German, South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, third-largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, after its capital Stuttgart a ...
.
Products
From its beginnings selling a single software application for burning, the company says it has become a "leader in digital media technologies"
that now sells a wide range of products. Nero sells its products directly as well as via hardware manufacturers that bundle them on PCs, hard disks, camcorders and other devices. Other companies also use Nero multimedia
codec
A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
s,
SDKs and
programming interfaces.
In 2008, Nero expanded its product range for the first time beyond the well-known burning software. With ''Nero Move it'', users were able to transfer photos, videos, and music from one device to another or to online communities like
YouTube
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...
,
Myspace
Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...
, and the company's own multimedia community My Nero. With the Nero 9 multimedia suite, they could create, rip, burn, edit, save, and upload their music, video, and photo files. In June 2009, the company launched its Nero BackitUp & Burn product, which saved, burned, and restored data and helped protect users' digital content. The company extended the product with additional functions in the years following its launch and gave the user navigation around the various program elements a more unified look and feel.
As a product,
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...
evolved from a pure burning program (
''Nero Burning ROM'') to a multimedia software package. The software includes programs:
* for burning and
packet writing
Packet writing (or incremental packet writing, IPW) is an optical disc recording technology used to allow write-once and rewritable CD and DVD media to be used in a similar manner to a floppy disk from within the operating system.
Details
Pa ...
(
''Nero Burning ROM'')
* for ripping and converting multimedia content (''Nero Recode'')
* for displaying, managing, and streaming photos and multimedia content (''Nero MediaHome'')
and
* for creating, editing, and
transcoding video content and for burning video content to video discs with menus (''Nero Video'')
Along with ''Nero'', Nero AG also developed
SecurDiscs process, as well as the
MPEG-4
MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related ...
compression technique
Nero Digital together with
Ateme corporation.
Nero BackItUp was initially included in the Nero suite of programs, it allows the user to create an automatic backup of their data and store it on external storage media or in the cloud. It was spun off in 2012, and is now available together with
cloud
In meteorology, a cloud is an aerosol consisting of a visible mass of miniature liquid droplets, frozen crystals, or other particles, suspended in the atmosphere of a planetary body or similar space. Water or various other chemicals may ...
-based storage as a subscription model.
Android, iOS and Windows Phone apps are available for Nero BackItUp.
Along with BackItUp, Nero provides additional applications for mobile devices. These include NeroKwik
for managing photo files, Nero AirBurn for burning files wirelessly, Nero MediaHome Receiver for
streaming media
Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a Computer network, network for playback using a Media player (disambiguation), media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of Network packet, packets from a Server (computing), ...
from a PC to mobile devices, and Nero MediaHome WiFi Sync for wireless data synchronization.
Since the release of Version 11, Nero Cover Designer (for creating covers), Nero WaveEditor (for editing music files) and Nero SoundTrax (for mixing and digitalizing music tracks) are no longer included in the suite but can be downloaded free of charge from the company's website.
Some of the products in the suite can also be downloaded separately. These include Nero Burning ROM and Nero Video.
Nero has also launched a number of free mobile Nero Suite companions apps for iOS and Android like Nero AirBurn, Nero Streaming Player
1001 TVs The latest app is Nero KnowHow app a digital learning guide for users, available for iOS, Windows 10 and Android.
For 2023, Nero AG launched th
Nero Lens(ai photo enhance app)
Nero Muse(ai art generator app). Also they dive in AI, Nero AI web online tools for image edit.
For 2024
Nero AI Video Upscaleris released, a software on upscale video quality to 4k.
2024 June, Nero AG release new mobile app
Erasee AI.
References
External links
Nero AG official websiteNero AG´s Forum NewNero AI-Second Fire of Nero AG
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nero Ag
Software companies of Germany
Companies established in 1995
Companies based in Baden-Württemberg
Companies based in Karlsruhe
German brands