Metrowerks Ltd, Montreal, Canada, the company that last week struck a deal to put Java-based technology into the Mac version of Microsoft Corp’s Internet Explorer browser says it expects its next partnership to be with a major consumer electronics company so it can develop and sell tools for personal digital assistants or game machines. The company already dominates the Macintosh tools arena with its CodeWarrior products and plans to port its tools to Windows. But that field is dominated by Microsoft and Borland…so we’re also expanding our business model into the imbedded arena, says Metrowerks chief financial officer David Perkins. Metrowerks recently finished building a Mips Technologies Inc RISC code generator and hopes to strike a deal with the likes of Sony, Matsushita or Nintendo for their programming interface, but refused to give specifics on any current talks. As part of the same strategy it signed a deal with PowerTV Inc to build tools to be used with set top boxes (CI No 2693). The company also says its first Windows host tools, which it planned to unveil in November, will probably ship a month early. For Microsoft, Metrowerks will build Java support into the Macintosh version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser and integrate it with ActiveX. InterCon will get Java support for its TCP/Connect II and InterServer Publisher Internet software.
