SunSoft goes to Praxsys for Snoopy system to run Windows applications under Solaris
SunSoft Inc’s all-important answer for running Microsoft Corp Windows applications on its watershed Solaris 2.0-on-Intel Corp iAPX-86 operating system is said to be being developed outside by a little-known 10-employee company called Praxsys Technologies Inc in Norwood, Massachusetts. Praxsys is one of a handful of noticeably small start-ups wrestling with the key interoperability issue facing Unix as it elbows its way on to the desktop. Snoopy, the code name given the unchristened Praxsys software, promises to take all current and future off-the-shelf shrinkwrapped Windows applications, whether written for Windows 3.0, 3.1 or New Technology, and run them unmodified on any RISC or Intel Unix system in native mode. Praxsys has remapped the Windows 3.0 application programming interface to XLib and Motif interfaces, expanding Windows to X Window stations, devices Microsoft itself can’t run on yet. As such, it has been designed to straddle client-server architectures. Major Windows packages such as Excel, Coral and Word have reportedly been tested. Keyboard, mouse and screen all run native. The performance of graphical Windows programs should be enhanced by the Unix hardware. Compute-bound packages that require the Unix engine to emulate Intel’s floating point will not run as well as on an Intel-MS-DOS system. Depending on intensity of use, Snoopy may be bundled with a copy of Windows. Praxsys intends making the operating system-independent software generally available, with hopes of hopping on such vehicles as Destiny from Unix System Labs Inc and Univel Inc. It could conceivably capture 10% to 25% of Unix users if its $500 list price is right. SunSoft, however, thanks to a licence it inherited when it bought the Systems Products Division of Interactive Systems Corp, has a time-to-market advantage, the exact terms of which are still unclear. With Solaris-on-Intel still unannounced and SunSoft starting to push Interactive Unix, Snoopy could appear there or on Solaris 1.0 or 2.0-on-Sparc first. It could also be an aftermarket product for Interactive’s 3.2. SunSoft, likely to be billed as a co-developer, is believed to be readying its Solaris-on-Intel announcement for late next month at PC Expo in New York. Sun’s acquisition of Interactive is said to have delayed Snoopy, which was originally set to bow at UniForum in January.
Leagues ahead of Quroum
Currently, it is understood to be in pre-alpha quality assurance, with alpha testing starting in June and beta later in the quarter. Praxsys could deliver in the fourth quarter: early 1993 is more likely. Praxsys is said to have used Microsoft Corp manuals in reconstructing the Windows Applications Programming Interface and played detective to find its undocumented systems calls. Sources say that most things work but hundreds of fine points have to be checked. The effort involved remaking every window, arrow and icon in the Motif look-and-feel. The product was initially a Windows 3.0 vehicle, but Praxsys is said to have overcome the major 3.1 hurdles: dynamic data exchange, object linking and embedding and scalable fonts. It cannot support TrueType until the X Window server does. Since Snoopy re-implements Windows calls, it could be used as a conversion tool, currently a more vapoury purpose than its initial harder-to-realise charter. Praxsys founders include engineering vice-president, Bob Van Dette, who brought a hand-picked development team over with him from Phoenix Technologies Ltd when it bombed out of the emulation business two years ago. That team had co-developed VPix, probably the most popular of the MS-DOS emulators, with Interactive. Besides Snoopy, Praxis has done MS-DOS emulation work for Sparcsystem builders Mars, Tatung and Hyundai. Praxsys is said to be leagues ahead of Quorum Software Inc, the Mac applications-on-RISC house that captured the limelight back at UniForum.
Solaris 2.0 Unix on iAPX-86 to be launched at PC Expo
The SunSoft arm of Sun Microsystems Inc will show
its Solaris 2.0 Unix-on-iAPX-86 play at the forthcoming PC Expo in New York according to Ed Zander, SunSoft’s president, and it is still scheduled to be available 90 days after the Sparc version ships. By next year, there will be no time delay between releases of software for the different architectures, promises Zander. Meanwhile the SparcWorks compilers that are used to recompile for both environments are soon to get a re-working – and a name change, but there will be no cross-compiler. Given all the hard work being invested in the various Unix desktop efforts, it seems a shame that Solaris for Sparc and Intel won’t be binary-compatible with Unix System Laboratories Inc’s Sparc and Intel implementations of the Destiny desktop Unix. Their respective Application Binary Interfaces are different. That might cause headaches at the likes of ICL Plc, which says it will run Destiny on its DRS 3000 boxes, while maintaining a Sun-compatible operating system on its DRS 6000 Sparc range. However Unix Labs has recently claimed that it will configure Destiny to run applications of all persuasions – including Solaris: Zander says if they can do that they’re better than anyone in the world. On the object-oriented effort with Hewlett-Packard Co, Zander says that there are 12 different products that will eventually fall under the Distributed Objects Everywhere umbrella it is sharing with Hewlett. The first of that breed will appear next year, including technology that will incorporate Tivoli Systems Inc’s WizDom object-oriented distributed management framework. Distributed Objects Everywhere will also embrace Sun’s ToolTalk communications and messaging service. SunSoft holds quarterly Distributed Objects Everywhere non-disclosure updates for 75 or more independent software vendors under the auspices of a Distributed Object Council, and has up to 100 engineers working on object stuff. Eyeing the expected Microsoft Corp NT assault on the 32-bit systems software market, SunSoft Inc is also fortifying its channel strategy, hoping to press the advantage first for its Interactive product, then for Solaris-on-Intel when it becomes available. SunSoft has been publicly quiet on Interactive Unix since acquiring the division at the New Year despite the fact that its sales accounted for a significant portion of the record number of licences it sold. Now it is starting to rev its engines with a new Spectrum programme designed to increase Interactive channel sales, preparing the way for Solaris-on-Intel. It has been interviewing its distributors and sampling its 3,000 resellers to access geographical coverage and shortcomings. SunSoft is spending in the neighbourhood of $5m on training and education, lead generation and promotion and user-oriented advertising. Its 10 US and 30 European distributors have been briefed: its 12 Pacific Rim houses remain. Sun, which reckons its US distribution is thin, is expected to strike first at Santa Cruz Operation Inc’s product, which is deemed to be over-distributed and stagnant. Santa Cruz’s forces are apparently disguntled since Sun has been invited to make its case to Santa Cruz’s Distributor Council later this month in Florida. SunSoft is also kicking off a 200,000-piece direct mail campaign targeting new users, with collateral telemarketing activity. It says it is currently turning over some 6,000 leads a month to its distributors.
