Applications development tools builder Metrowerks Inc signed a letter of intent to acquire the principle assets of The Latitude Group Inc, Mountain View, California to get into the Mac applications-to-Unix conversion business. Latitude’s principle assets include a library designed to enable Mac OS applications to be converted to run under Unix-hosted operating systems, including Solaris 2.3, IRIX 5.2 and HP-UX 9.03. The Latitude libraries redirect Mac OS commands to the target operating system, with a Unix library containing a portable implementation of the Mac OS application programming interface at its core. Metrowerks intends to use the Latitude library to create a version of its CodeWarrior to run on Solaris workstations so that these can be used to host embedded systems development. Metrowerks plans to ship CodeWarrior Latitude in the summer in one version for all targets at $400. Terms were not disclosed.
