For about a decade, beginning with its launch in 1997, Nero was one of the most popular applications in the field of home computing (mainly on Windows, although it also landed for a time on Mac and Linux systems). Its main function? Burn, rewrite and rip CD’s and DVD’sthe most used portable storage media in those (distant) times.
If a couple of weeks ago we dedicated a ‘What happened to…?’ to a program that was defeated by the lawyers of the music industry, our protagonist today was defeated, first of all, by the evolution of hardwarewhich ended up making it obsolete after the arrival of USB flash drives and the cloud.
Although, to be fair, in both cases their respective declines had already started before that, and this time for the same reasons as Kazaa: an unstoppable tendency to bloat your software and constantly pepper it with user-unwanted adware.
History
In 1995 there was no software for the Windows home user (Windows 95 had just broken the PC market) capable of managing the recording, rewriting and ripping of CDs. So that same year, German businessman Richard Lesser founded Ahead Software and got to work on the release of Nero Burning ROM.
Nero 1 was never released, being only a trial version, but Nero 2 and Nero 3 were both released (also available in Spanish) throughout 1997. Two years later, in January 1999, the fourth version of Nero was released, available for Windows 3.1, 9x and Windows ME. It was then that support for the ISO, MP3 and Video CD formatsall of them key to its success over the following years.
It was released for the first time accompanied by a complementary software, Nero Cover Editora small application that facilitated the design and printing of covers for CDs… and that was the starting signal for Ahead’s trend of multiplying with each release the number of applications that accompanied its flagship program, playing more and more ‘sticks’ apart from the mere recording of discs.
Already in the year 2000, Ahead released Nero 5.0, whose biggest novelty, really, was the loss of compatibility with Windows 3.1. We had to wait a few months, until the 5.0.35 update, to see how its developers also implemented support for WMA audio files. Around that time, they also released the first version of Nero for Mac systems, called NeroMax: Its appearance was quite different from its ‘big brother’ for Windows, but its functionality was not.
With the turn of the century, in 2001, the release of Nero 5.5 would also arrive. From this point on, Ahead would start adding numerous new companion apps with each release, although in some cases they were only mergers or subdivisions of previous applications. Thus, Nero Cover Editor was replaced by Nero Cover Designer, and applications such as Nero Wave Editor (a copy of Audacity) or Nero Toolkit were included.
In 2005, with ‘Nero’ long since Ahead Software AG’s main brand name, Ahead Software AG became Nero AG. Oh, and they throw its first version for Linux (NeroLinux) and the seventh version of its suite for Windows (with another handful of new applications: Nero Home, Nero Recode, Nero Scout, Nero Media Home, Nero PhotoSnap…). That same year, Nero Software launches its first mobile app (for Windows Mobile) and opens offices in China, but its star is beginning to fade with the rise of USBs and free and lightweight alternatives like CDBurnerXP or ImgBurn.
Nero made it easy for the competition, incorporating unwanted software into their installation programs like the browser toolbars so fashionable at the time (Yahoo!, Ask, AVG…). In the years that followed, Nero launched an ‘online community’, MyNero, for hosting media files in the cloud (it no longer exists), withdrew Linux and Mac from the market, and switched to Nero Burning Suite ROM three times (from Ultra Edition to Multimedia Suite, then to Burn Light, and finally to Nero Platinum).
It’s still around today (and still has a ton of apps for all sorts of uses), although I personally don’t know anyone who still uses their CD/DVD burning program. It was nice while it lasted, Nero.
Why ‘Nero Burning ROM’?
I mean, why is the show called that? Well, it can be interpreted as ‘nero recording [una memoria] ROM (read only)‘, but it’s also an obvious reference to the burning of Rome: since ‘ROM’ and ‘Rome’ are pronounced the same in English, another possible translation is ‘Nero burning Rome’.
That the icon of the program was the Colosseum in flames apparently made the reference explicit… despite this, there are still users who capture it years and years after having been using the program.
Years using the Nero Burning ROM and I just realized that it makes a pun on “Nero burning Rome”. Yeah, I’m that slow at catching them. pic.twitter.com/f50sZe7NQw
— 𝙎𝙧. 𝘼𝙛𝙧𝙪𝙨𝙛𝙧𝙪𝙨 (@SrAfrusfrus) June 30, 2022
Since 2003 or 2004 approximately using the Nero Burning Rom. In 2017 I realized why the name and the icon were like this #DelayFort
— Tullidocracy, the government of those like me (@Tullidocrates) June 8, 2017