FYI..[bostic@bsdi.com: Windows on Unix compliments of Noorda]

[rodney at sabletech.com (Rodney Thayer)]

first one to see this on the net for linux please raise your hand...

>>>Return-Path: <bostic at vangogh.CS.Berkeley.EDU>
>>>Date: Thu, 11 Jan 1996 10:05:02 -0500
>>>From: bostic at bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
>>>To: /dev/null at python.bostic.com
>>>Subject: Windows on Unix compliments of Noorda
>>>
>>>Forwarded-by: Eric Varsanyi <ewv at boom.bsdi.com>
>>>
>>>    NOORDA's WILLOWS TO PUT ITS WINDOWS-ON-UNIX SOURCE ON TO NET
>>>
>>>Fresh from its victory over Microsoft Corp last month at ECMA, the
>>>European Computer Manufacturers Association (UX No 569), the tiny Ray
>>>Noorda-financed start-up Willows Software has changed gears, plowing ahead
>>>with a move that is bound to irk the mighty Redmond empire. This week
>>>it'll detail a plan to distribute the source code to its ersatz Win32s
>>>operating environment, described as a subset of Windows 95, free on the
>>>Internet. It will also make its anticipated software development kit, the
>>>Twin Cross Platform Developers Kit (XPDK), similarly available for
>>>personal use. Noorda himself will brief the press. The source code will
>>>allow users of any flavour of Unix - followed in turn by Apple Macintosh,
>>>Novell NetWare and ultimately IBM OS/2 users - to run Windows binaries,
>>>particularly Microsoft's own highly popular Word, Excel and PowerPoint
>>>programs, on their systems. They will not have to pay any operating
>>>systems "taxes" to Microsoft.
>>>
>>>Saratoga, California-based Willows claims the move will create something
>>>of a paradigm shift - at least within the narrow confines of Unix - and
>>>spell the end of Sun Microsystems Inc's like-minded but limited product,
>>>Wabi, as well as Motif. Officially, Wabi only runs two dozen of the
>>>thousands of Windows programs available and to run some of them, like
>>>PowerPoint, requires the real Windows underneath, defeating one of Sun's
>>>purposes - to wit, depriving Microsoft of its revenue stream. Willows
>>>chief Rob Farnum says he will spend the next few weeks lobbying Wabi's
>>>greatest adherents, Sun and IBM, to abandon Wabi and license the Willows
>>>solution on favourable terms. He has utter confidence such an appeal will
>>>succeed and make Willows money. (Sun and IBM Corp did after all sit on
>>>the ECMA technical committee TC37 with Willows pushing the technology as
>>>a standard.) Farnum never wanted to distribute the source code, he says,
>>>because Willows doesn't have the financial wherewithal to support it. The
>>>decision to do it anyway was made over the holidays by Microsoft's old
>>>nemesis Ray Noorda and his henchmen. Farnum now believes that despite the
>>>fact the source code won't be supported it will attract tens of thousands
>>>of users.
>>>
>>>Outside interest in Willows technology, he said, has always focused almost
>>>exclusively on its ability to run binaries.  It is unclear whether Noorda
>>>will also try to tie it in somehow with the Linux freeware-based Corsair
>>>Internet desktop his Caldera operation is pushing. Willows is also now
>>>willing to forego carving out what it estimates would be a modest little
>>>$10m business selling its XPDK toolkit to a couple of thousand Unix
>>>developers a year. Any real money to be made, it figures, lies in what it
>>>calls "professional services," porting applications for people with its
>>>technology or helping them port them. It intends to announce such a
>>>program this week. It also intends to announce licensing schemes whereby
>>>pieces of its technology can be bundled with third-party programs.
>>>
>>>Willows will support its technology when applied to commercial purposes
>>>and apparently charge modest licensing fees of $250 a platform despite
>>>the number of developers using it or run-times created. Farnum claims that
>>>when Willows this week announces the imminent arrival of its XPDK for the
>>>Mac - which like its NetWare kit is at the alpha stage - it will bring
>>>pressure to bear on Microsoft's new $1,600 Visual C++ tool for the
>>>platform. Still he remains diffident, or perhaps cautious, about Willows
>>>impact on Microsoft - at one point calling it "mouse nuts" - and
>>>Microsoft's reaction to Willows' moves. He apparently expects Microsoft
>>>to denigrate Willows technology out of a perceived loss of control, loss
>>>of revenue and threat to Win95. At the same time, he admits it would take
>>>Willows 50 man-years just to catch up with Microsoft's OLE work which he
>>>knows he must emulate. Farnum leaves unarticulated or unadmitted - despite
>>>direct questions - Willows long-term purposes respecting Microsoft though
>>>perhaps he and Noorda now feel they will make more daunting foes by using
>>>the Internet to evolve their schemes.

                  Rodney Thayer           ::         rodney at sabletech.com
                  Sable Technology Corp   ::              +1 617 332 7292
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