What company developed the GIF format?

CompuServe developed the GIF format. The online service introduced the Graphics Interchange Format on June 15, 1987, to provide a practical color-image format for files downloaded by its users. The project was led by computer scientist Steve Wilhite, who worked with a CompuServe engineering team.

GIF was designed for an era when people commonly exchanged data over relatively slow modem connections. Its indexed-color palette and LZW compression made image files smaller and easier to transmit than many alternatives available at the time. The initial specification was called GIF87a; CompuServe later released the GIF89a revision in 1989.

GIF’s later popularity came from more than compression. GIF89a supported multiple images in one file, enabling simple animation, as well as transparency and interlacing. Although newer formats such as PNG are better for many still images, GIF’s broad compatibility helped make it one of the defining image formats of the early web.