Rosetta Stone Inc. is an American software company that develops Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone (software)

Rosetta Stone is proprietary computer-assisted language learning software developed by Rosetta Stone Inc. Both its title and logo refer to the Rosetta Stone, an artifact inscribed in multiple languages that helped Jean-François Champollion to decipher Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs...

, a language-learning software.

Corporate structure

Rosetta Stone, Ltd., formerly Fairfield & Sons, Ltd. d.b.a. Fairfield Language Technologies, has two subsidiary companies:

• Rosetta Stone (UK) Limited is based in London in the United Kingdom and handles the sales within EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa).
• Rosetta Stone Japan Inc., formerly Rosetta World, is based in Tokyo, Japan, and handles sales in the Asian markets.

IPO

On April 15, 2009 Rosetta Stone raised $112 million dollars in its Initial Public Offering

Initial public offering

An initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...

 of stock, with shares valued at $18.00. In its first full day of trading on the New York Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange

The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...

, the stock performed strongly, closing at $25.12 per share, up 39% from its opening price. After a strong opening, however, the stock stumbled amid reports of weaknesses in Rosetta Stone's US business, resulting in the cancellation of a second offering, and a disappointing year end price just 5 cents off its opening price. The stock trades under ticker symbol RST.

Offices

• Corporate headquarters
  Corporate headquarters
  Corporate headquarters is a term used to describe the entity at the top of a corporation to take full responsibility for the overall success of the corporation, ensures Corporate Governance...
  
   are in Arlington, Virginia.
• Main offices are in Harrisonburg, Virginia
  Harrisonburg, Virginia
  Harrisonburg is an independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia in the United States. Its population as of 2010 is 48,914, and at the 2000 census, 40,468. Harrisonburg is the county seat of Rockingham County and the core city of the Harrisonburg, Virginia Metropolitan Statistical...
  
  . Production takes place at this location, the shipping facility is in the same area.
• There are also offices in Boulder, Colorado
  Boulder, Colorado
  Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
  
  ; London
  London
  London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
  
  , United Kingdom
  United Kingdom
  The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
  
  ; Tokyo
  Tokyo
  , ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
  
  , Japan
  Japan
  Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
  
  ; and Seoul
  Seoul
  Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...
  
  , South Korea
  South Korea
  The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
  
  .

Languages Covered

Rosetta Stone's software covers the following languages:

• Arabic
• Chinese (Mandarin)
• Danish
• Dutch
• English (American)
• English (British)
• Filipino (Tagalog)
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hebrew
• Hindi
• Indonesian
• Irish
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Latin
• Pashto
• Persian (Farsi)
• Polish
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Russian
• Spanish (Latin America)
• Spanish (Spain)
• Swahili
• Swedish
• Thai
• Turkish
• Vietnamese
• Welsh
• Yiddish

Endangered language communities

In 2004, Rosetta Stone Ltd. established its Endangered Language Program to contract with endangered language

Endangered language

An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....

 communities interested in custom software development

Software development

Software development is the development of a software product...

 to support language revitalization efforts.

External links

• Official website
• Rosetta Stone factsheet — Hoover's
  Hoover's
  Hoover's, Inc., a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, is a business research company that has provided information on U.S. and foreign companies and industries since 1990. Since 1993, the company has made its information available on its website.-Operations:...
  
  
• Rosetta Stone company profile — Google Finance
  Google Finance
  Google Finance is a website launched on March 21, 2006 by Google. The service features business and enterprise headlines for many corporations including their financial decisions and major news events. Stock information is available, as are Adobe Flash-based stock price charts which contain marks...
  
  
• "Rosetta Stone Inc. IPO"