Multiport Inc, the Mountain View, California successor company to to Hunter Systems Inc, and a quiet little contender for Wabi turf, believes it could have its development finished by June. Its issue remains how to turn it into a product. Currently it still has no OEM customer ready to go, although enough companies, even those in the Wabi camp, are said to be watching its progress. (Others have looked and decided not to pursue it however). Multiport believes that what it will offer will be vastly superior to Wabi, a combination at least of the capabilities of Wabi and the Mainsoft Inc and Bristol Technology Inc products one unnamed package. Basically what Multiport is doing, it says, is to re-engineer Windows including Microsoft Corp’s Dynamic Data Exchange and its associated Object Linking & Embedding technology, both of which are missing from Wabi, making it impossible for Wabi to run certain Windows applications without Windows 3.1 riding underneath – exactly the thing it was designed to prevent. Multiport says the Dynamic Data Exchange part has been done and Object Linking & Embedding is in progress. It is also promising 80486 performance out of the gate on all the key RISC systems: Sparc, R-series, PowerPC and Precision Architecture RISC, which is says are done, and Alpha too, when Multiport, which still does not have an Alpha box, gets around to it. It’s also got a Mac version in development and says it could go to OS/2, Windows NT and even Acorn Computers Plc’s systems. The Multiport technology, which company president Rob Farnum refers to as Windows technology for multiple platforms, could be broken apart into such things as a Windows run-time, an Software Developers’ Kit and a suite of tools. Farnum muses that it could function as the reference specification for the Sun Microsystems Inc-proposed Public Windows Initiative, little heard of since it was first suggested early last year. Farnum is concerned he will not be able to compete against the marketing dollars of a Bristol and a Mainsoft and so is toying with the idea of somehow converting to the net and making it profitable. Multiport is counting on Wabi proving to be only a tactical product and figures that when users realize how few Windows applications it can actually run, the pressure to find out what else is available will play to its advantage.
