SUMMARY: Direction of Wabi

From: Dave Colpoys (davec@kodak.com)
Date: Wed Aug 20 1997 - 15:51:28 CDT


Looks like it's true....Many thanks to all who responded

Dave> I heard a rumor that Sun is going to drop support of Wabi, does
Dave> anybody know if this is true? If not, are they coming out with
Dave> support for Win95 apps?

Dave Colpoys
System Administrator/ESPC
Eastman Kodak Company
Building 4/Elmgrove
davec@kodak.com
Phone: (716) 253-5613

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It's not a rumor; it's true.

Wabi will continue to be distributed with Solaris, but it will not be
developed any further. Sun's recommended way of accessing Win95/NT
applications is now the NTrigue NT server product
(http://www.insignia.com/ntrigue).

--
Tim Evans <tkevans@eplrx7.es.dupont.com>

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Yes this is VERY true. win95/Wabi will now NOT be supported

Michael McGeown <mcgeown@BBN.COM> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As of Solaris 2.6 they are offering the Insignia client for running the Multiuser NT server and displaying the stuff on the Unix box using X.

I forget the name though...

John Stoffel <jfs@fluent.com>

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I have also heard those rumors (from a Sun rep). You can currently run Win95 through the latest version of SunPC, though I have also heard from a different resource that SunPC will be dropped. I would assume if this is true, that they will be bringing in a third party solution.

Tom E Smith <tesmit1@tessa.monsanto.com>

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I thought Wabi was made by a separate company. At least I know that you can get Wabi for Linux.. which has nothing to do with Sun Microsystems even though I know that Wabi was originally developped for the Sun. My understanding is that Wabi 2.2 (the current version) supports standard Windows 3.1 programs. The next version, Wabi 3.0, is supposed to support 32-bit programs and Windows 95. I'm not sure when the next release is planned to be released though.

Cheers! Richard.Dansereau@EE.UManitoba.CA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- dave, My understanding is that development of WABI has ceased, and there will be no WABI support for Win95.

Regards,

Andrew Foote <acf@nabaus.com.au>

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi, You're right - WABI is pretty much dead. Here is the extract from a mail which I received some time back:

------------------------------------- WABI The new direction for providing PC compatibility involves investment tradeoffs with existing technologies such as Wabi. The Wabi technology provides an office suite solution, but it does not provide full PC compatibility for all PC applications which is an increasingly more prevalent customer requirement. Products currently exist and others are evolving in the marketplace that better satisfy our customer requirement. Continued investment in the Wabi technology is inconsistent with Sun's strategic direction. We are therefore shifting investment in the Wabi technology to other technologies such as Java clients, client/server products in general and the SunPC type co-processor products. Development on Wabi 3.0, which was to include support for Microsoft Windows 32-bit applications has been cancelled. Wabi 2.2 will continue to be supported for some period of time. -------------------------------------- So you might have to look at SunPC for running Win-95 apps. "K.Ravi" <RAVKRISH.IN.oracle.com.ofcmail@in.oracle.com>

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave,

this is true, there will be not future releases of WABI, if you require Win95 support I can suggest the SunPC card which has a 5x86 processor on it, or Softwindows 95 from Insignia for software emulation.

Regards pauls@esteem.co.uk (Paul Simpson) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't know about Wabi, but their SunPC product already supports Win95.

gibian@stars1.hanscom.af.mil (Marc S. Gibian)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What I've been hearing is that SunPC is going to replace it. SunPC was a predecessor of Wabi that generally required a 486 chip on a card plugged into an SBus slot to run with any performance. With Wabi you had to install Windows 3.1 manually on top of the Wabi layor. With Sun PC you had to install DOS on top of SunPC, then you could install Windows 3.1 on top of the DOS. I hear that SunPC will support Win'95 these days and Wabi has no plans to support Win'95. There was another product I'd heard may be the official replacement for Wabi... Zirex or ... something... sorry, I've forgotten now.

Dan Penrod <penrod@wcnewmedia.com>

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Well it looks like it! I have tried asking Sun about it, but I have been given the cold shoulder every time. Wabi 3.0 was going ahead but all info about it has disappeared. The direction Sun are going is to give you software which will display win95 apps on your workstation, but the software running on a NT server. This means that you have to have a powerful NT server in your department if you have many Wabi users.

I find it very strange that Sun are going down that route, since many people will be forced to buy an NT box just to keep the wabi user happy. Mr Gates must be very happy!!!!

If you hear some better news please let us know.

"Andrew Watkins,R133,x6720" <andrew@dcs.bbk.ac.uk>'

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They will be focusing on getting SunPC boards installed in those machines that require Windoze support. These cards have a real "586" (Pentium? AMD? Not sure) on them, and run the apps more or less directly, with, I assume, interaction on the window manager level to get stuff to display in X windows.

This was basically confirmed in a meeting I attended yesterday with a couple of our local Sun sales guys.

The pricing they suggested was more than reasonable -- about $300 CDN per card... Can't really beat that, considering you'd be getting real Pentium performance out of it...

Jason Marshall <jasonm@vsl.com> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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