Apogee Software, Inc. (Apogee) was founded in 1988 by 6 compiler designers with a goal of creating high performance cross-compilers for embedded systems based on RISC processors.  Apogee completed its first product offering, the optimizing C/C++ and FORTRAN cross-compilers for Intergraph's Clipper, Motorola's M88K, and Sun's SuperSPARC processors, in less than 4 years.  Then, Apogee gradually developed and brought to the market the "off-the-shelf" optimizing C/C++ cross-compilers for PowerPC processors (in 1995), MIPS32/64 processors (in 1998), and ARM/XScale processors (in 2003).  In addition, Apogee created customized C/C++ cross-compilers on contracts from a number of hardware and software vendors, such as Cirrus Logic, Chromatic Research, Infinite Technology Corporation, Mentor Graphics, NEC Electronics, Palm, Philips Semiconductors, Proceler, Silicon Graphics, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., ST Microelectronics, and Telairity Semiconductors.  Apogee sold the intellectual property of its entire compiler technology to a major Japanese corporation in 2007, so it can devote all of its manpower resources on the "Java related" activities (see below).

In 1996, Apogee started a major effort to create the high performance and reliable Java Runtime Environments (JREs) for embedded systems based on x86, ARM, MIPS, and PowerPC processors, and introduced in fall of 1997 a family of Micro edition JREs (MJREs) comprised of Java ME CDC/CLDC technologies licensed from Sun Microsystems and ported by Apogee to customer requested embedded systems.  Apogee was the first licensee of Sun's J2ME CDC technologies, and completed the first MJRE comprised of Apogee's x86 ports of Sun's J2ME CDC JVM, HotSpot optimizer, and Foundation Profile before Sun completed its first J2ME CDC targeted JRE.

In middle of 2003, Apogee decided to replace Sun's Java technologies with more advanced and reliable "embedded" Java technologies from IBM, and became a premium Java partner of IBM and a source code licensee (one of only 4 worldwide) of IBM's WEME and WECE "embedded" Java technologies.  Since then, Apogee created dozens of MJREs comprised of: (i) Apogee's ports of WEME and WECE technologies, such as the J9 Java VM (J9VM) Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler, Java class libraries, and implementations of J2ME JSRs (Java Specification Requests); and (ii) complementary technologies obtained from reputable from providers of open-source Java software, such as, for example, the Equinox OSGi frameworks and service bundles from Eclipse.org.  In addition, Apogee developed several key Java technologies that are not available from IBM or providers of open source Java software, for example a highly deterministic real-time garbage collector.

Starting in 2007, embedded systems were becoming more powerful and less constrained by available flash and RAM sizes, which meant that the devices based on such embedded systems could run, with acceptable runtime performance and in acceptable runtime footprint, the Java SE applications.  Therefore, Apogee introduced in spring of 2008 the Custom edition JREs (CJREs) capable of running Java SE 4.x and Java SE 5 applications on devices targeted by them, because each such CJRE was comprised of ports of Java SE 5 compatible Harmony Class Library (HCL) from Apache.org, IBM's JIT compiler, and IBM's "embedded" J9VM enhanced by Apogee to work effectively and seamlessly with the ports of HCL.  Apogee also became a contributing member of Apache's HCL project.  The Java SE 5 compatible CJREs were subsequently upgraded in 2009 to become compatible with Oracle's Java SE 6 platform by including in them the ports od Java SE 6 compatible HCL. Unfortunately,  in May 2011, Apogee was informed by leadership of HCL project that Apache.org will suspend or terminate the project by fall of 2011.  Therefore, in July 2011, Apogee started to use the ports of Java SE 7 class library (JSE7 CL) from Oracle's Java SE 7 OpenJDK instead of the ports of HCL in all new CJREs.  In addition, Apogee has been gradually replacing the ports of HCL with the ports of JSE7CL in all existing CJREs, and intends to complete this by the end of 2012.
 
Based in Campbell, one of the cities in California's "Silicon Valley", Apogee is a privately held California corporation owned by 3 of the original founders (85% ownership), and by the initial VC investor (15% ownership).  Apogee has a wholly owned subsidiary Apogee.cz, s.r.o. in Prague, Czech Republic, the purpose of which is to create MJREs and CJREs for Apogee's European customers, and to provide technical support and maintenance for all Apogee's MJREs and CJREs.