Why has the Metrowerks sign been taken down?
Peter Lui
they are moving, Freescale has taken down the large Metrowerks sign at
its Parmer HQ.
The Metrowerks website now seems to indicate that Metrowerks has been
absorbed into Freescale as a "team" and no longer exists as a separate
company:
http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/About/default.htm
> Freescale Semiconductor’s Metrowerks organization is a silicon
> enablement team that helps customers experience and fully leverage the
> performance of Freescale products. The organization’s embedded
> development leadership, technology and talent are focused on driving
> success for Freescale and its customers.
Silicon enablement team? That sounds like the company has folded to me
and they are simply keeping the name around until they can sell of the
rest of the product lines. I'm starting to wonder if Metrowerks is
simply MWRon and some lonely guy burning CDs.
I also noticed that Metrowerks press releases are now making no mention
of Metrowerks as a company at the bottom.
Arthur Langereis
> Silicon enablement team? That sounds like the company has folded to
> me and they are simply keeping the name around until they can sell of
> the rest of the product lines.
Along the same lines, I guess that programmers could be called Computer
Enablers then. I'll have someone modify my business cards for me.
> I'm starting to wonder if Metrowerks is simply MWRon and some lonely
> guy burning CDs.
Hmm, if a new programmer tools company was formed by Isaac,
Howard and Ron (along with some usability geeks (and the CD burner guy))
I'd be first in line to buy when they ship something. :)
Maybe if they'd team up with BareBones we'd have a full IDE in .. Fall 2006!
You read it here first ;)
- Arthur
Alwyn
Peter Lui <pelui_...@comcast.net> wrote:
> It appears that Freescale has other intentions for Metrowerks. Unless
> they are moving, Freescale has taken down the large Metrowerks sign at
> its Parmer HQ.
In the words of Bruce Chizen, why did it take them so long. :-)
> The Metrowerks website now seems to indicate that Metrowerks has been
> absorbed into Freescale as a "team" and no longer exists as a separate
> company:
>
> http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/About/default.htm
>
> > Freescale Semiconductor’s Metrowerks organization is a silicon
> > enablement team that helps customers experience and fully leverage the
> > performance of Freescale products. The organization’s embedded
> > development leadership, technology and talent are focused on driving
> > success for Freescale and its customers.
>
> Silicon enablement team?
Yes, Freescale seems to like the term 'silicon enablement'. See:
<http://investors.freescale.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=175261&p=irol-newsArticle
&ID=682162&highlight=>
> That sounds like the company has folded to me
> and they are simply keeping the name around until they can sell of the
> rest of the product lines. I'm starting to wonder if Metrowerks is
> simply MWRon and some lonely guy burning CDs.
For members of this group, the second paragraph of the 'About' page is
just as interesting:
> Metrowerks'award-winning line of CodeWarrior products and close
> collaboration with key Freescale Ecosystem players help maintain
> a continuum of world-class embedded development technologies for
> Freescale customers and prospects.
The Mac business is so insignificant these days, it's not worth a
mention when Freescale tell the world what Metrowerks is about. It
obviously doesn't fit in with their way of thinking.
> I also noticed that Metrowerks press releases are now making no mention
> of Metrowerks as a company at the bottom.
Yes, I believe that applies to all press releases emitted this year.
Alwyn
jonh...@mac.com
>> mention when Freescale tell the world what Metrowerks is about.
Gee, I wonder who's fault that is. It's a shame, a mere 2-3 years ago,
CodeWarrior was a virtual monopoly on the Mac. ProjectBuilder was a
blip on the radar screen. But Metrowerks really screwed the pooch
these past two years, and so Xcode has essentially taken over.
You can't really blame CodeWarrior supporters, as we have pleaded with
Metrowerks no to proceed with a market-killing move, like refusing to
show up at WWDC and dropping x86 support. We watched as they commit
the business equivalent to hari-kari, all the time them saying, "We
know what we're doing."
A company that started out so cool, is now run by a bunch of complete
and utter morons. I wish we had Greg Galanos back at the helm.
Jonathan Hoyle
Eastman Kodak
Alwyn
"jonh...@mac.com" <jonh...@mac.com> wrote:
> I wish we had Greg Galanos back at the helm.
It's my understanding that Mr Galanos & Co. were having difficulty
keeping the company profitable. I've no doubt they were mightily
relieved when it was taken over by Motorola.
But I believe you're right: the fate of CodeWarrior for Macintosh was
sealed in August 1999. It's been in a long, slow decline since then.
Unfortunately, it is also a technology they could not easily have sold,
as Freescale did with the x86 stuff. So it's my guess that they will
hold on to it as long as they can derive revenue from it, but without
making significant investments in it. When the revenue dries up
completely, of course they will let it go.
Alwyn
MW Ron
Peter Lui <pelui_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>It appears that Freescale has other intentions for Metrowerks. Unless
>they are moving, Freescale has taken down the large Metrowerks sign at
>its Parmer HQ.
Metrowerks was seen as a competitor to other compiler and tool vendors
that supplied Freescale, instead we wish to enable Freescale silicon
sales as CodeWarrior tools and in partnership with 3rd parties.
Some products, Games, Desktop and Palm will continue to be sold under
the Metrowerks name
>The Metrowerks website now seems to indicate that Metrowerks has been
>absorbed into Freescale as a "team" and no longer exists as a separate
>company:
>
>http://www.metrowerks.com/MW/About/default.htm
look at http://www.codewarrior.com
>Silicon enablement team? That sounds like the company has folded to me
>and they are simply keeping the name around until they can sell of the
>rest of the product lines. I'm starting to wonder if Metrowerks is
>simply MWRon and some lonely guy burning CDs.
No, it is a healthy organization.
>I also noticed that Metrowerks press releases are now making no mention
>of Metrowerks as a company at the bottom.
My understand is that some will and some won't
Ron
--
CodeWarrior Community Forum is a free online resource for developers
to discuss CodeWarrior topics with other users and our staff
-- http://www.codewarrior.com/community --
Ron Liechty - MW...@metrowerks.com - http://www.codewarrior.com
Peter Lui
> Metrowerks was seen as a competitor to other compiler and tool vendors
> that supplied Freescale, instead we wish to enable Freescale silicon
> sales as CodeWarrior tools and in partnership with 3rd parties.
>
So in 1998, MW was a competitor to those vendors, then Motorola bought
MW and it was still a competitior, then Motorola spun off the entire
semiconductor business and it was still a competitor and now 6 long
years later MW is being replaced with a Freescale branded version that
will not compete?
If Freescale can't make fast PowerPC processors I guess it's too much
to hope for that they have any idea what software development tools are
about and how to sell them. Forrest Gump must have been made CEO of
Freescale a long time ago.
Some products, Games, Desktop and Palm will continue to be sold under
the Metrowerks name
>
I can't beleive anyone buys Palm tools from Metrowerks anymore. This is
another prime example of how a cozy relationship with the OS vendor
went sour and the technology transition to ARM left Metrowerks behind.
Metrowerks seems to be unwilling to invest in themselves and instead
prefers to milk the efforts of the previous decade.
look at http://www.codewarrior.com
>
So Metrowerks as a company is now dead and exists only as a brand
within Freescale.
I think this sums it up pretty well:
Peter Lui
> A company that started out so cool, is now run by a bunch of complete
> and utter morons. I wish we had Greg Galanos back at the helm.
Galanos and Belanger weren't so smart becaue their biggest mistake was
hiring those idiots in the first place and leaving them in charge.
These are the boobs who were left to ruin the company:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010124062100/www.metrowerks.com/about/officers/
Look at their backgrounds: their only business experience is Metrowerks
itself and they only have bachelor degrees. Now fast forward to 2004:
http://web.archive.org/web/20021017223744/www.metrowerks.com/MW/About/bios.htm?cookie_test=1
Same
people, same experience except a couple of them don't even seem to have
an education background worth mentioning. I believe 8 of those 10
people are no longer with Metrowerks perhaps all of them. What company
can survive losing it's entire management team?
Maybe for Metrowerks this is for the best.
la...@skytag.com
is, if they have a sign up, or if CW for Palm is a thriving product. My
only interest is in CW for Mac development and all indications are that
it's a dead product (as opposed to a discontinued product).
I think Motorola/Freescale figured out a long time ago that there was
an expiration date on selling processors for use in Macs, and after
that the death of CW for Mac was inevitable. I remember when CW *was*
CW for Mac development. Now you have to hunt for that product on a page
full of products for embedded systems I don't even recognize. They
didn't sell off their x86 technology because they were stupid, they did
it because they have no use for it in their long-term product plan.
As always, the only *bad* thing in all this is the degree to which
MW/FS keeps spinning out marketing jargon in lieu of providing any real
information. They are clearly going to milk us as long as enough of us
pay them to keep CW limping along for PPC development. Once that is no
longer true and the current release of CW won't work with the current
release of Mac OS X, they'll make some announcement about how in spite
of grand efforts to keep the product alive, further development became
impractical, blah blah blah, goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
Larry
MW Ron
Peter Lui <pelui_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>On 2005-06-23 08:44:52 -0700, MW Ron <mw...@metrowerks.com> said:
>
>> Metrowerks was seen as a competitor to other compiler and tool vendors
>> that supplied Freescale, instead we wish to enable Freescale silicon
>> sales as CodeWarrior tools and in partnership with 3rd parties.
>>
>So in 1998, MW was a competitor to those vendors, then Motorola bought
>MW and it was still a competitior, then Motorola spun off the entire
>semiconductor business and it was still a competitor and now 6 long
>years later MW is being replaced with a Freescale branded version that
>will not compete?
Yeah that is pretty much the problem. We tried to do all brands of
chips we were competing with other 3rd parties with FSL chips
>If Freescale can't make fast PowerPC processors I guess it's too much
>to hope for that they have any idea what software development tools are
>about and how to sell them. Forrest Gump must have been made CEO of
>Freescale a long time ago.
PC Chips were 3% of Freescale's business but you should get quotes
directly from their press releases.
>So Metrowerks as a company is now dead and exists only as a brand
>within Freescale.
I don't think so not legally yet. Actually there is much more to what
is going on and I think it will be good news for Mac developers.
jonh...@mac.com
>> and I think it will be good news for Mac developers.
Just when I am depressed thinking it's over and it's time to throw in
the towel, MWRon makes a remark like that to give us hope. Well,
here's hoping for great news this summer. :-)
Ron, do you think that you will be able to reveal these plans when you
are at MacHack? I would urge you to remind the higher ups that MacHack
would be the ideal place to make such announcements (as WWDC 2006 would
be a bit late in the game for it). MacHack in particular tends to
appeal to the old guard, who are much more likely to be CodeWarrior
users than newbies. An inspiring presentation on what's to come would
be helpful to keep us on between now and when you release CW 10.
Thanks,
Jonathan Hoyle
Eastman Kodak
MW Ron
"jonh...@mac.com" <jonh...@mac.com> wrote:
I go on Vacation for 2 weeks July first and I'm hoping for a roadmap
before I go on vacation. I imagine if that isn't ready they may wait
to make a splash at AdHoc.
Peter Lui
> What's the point of this thread? I couldn't care less what their name
> is, if they have a sign up, or if CW for Palm is a thriving product. My
> only interest is in CW for Mac development and all indications are that
> it's a dead product (as opposed to a discontinued product).
The point is simply that the writing has been on the wall for sometime
and now the wall is finally being taken down.
I think Motorola/Freescale figured out a long time ago that there was
> an expiration date on selling processors for use in Macs,
>
After the PowerPC 970 was announced and Motorola's competitive roadmap
was blank I would agree but as the chip vendor isn't that up to you?
Have you ever seen this poster:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000815081701/www.macedition.com/images/wanted/wantedcolor.jpg
Freescale
set it's own expiration date. Motorola threw it away. Apple made other plans.
and after
> that the death of CW for Mac was inevitable.
>
Inevitable because they were managed by people cutting their teeth for
the first time and used a broken magic-8 ball whose only advice when
shaken was to run as large a company as possible for as long as you can
so your resume looks good. The real reason that the product was doomed:
a FAILED merger. It happens.
Check out the exec bios I found after much websearching:
http://www.wirelessvalley.com/News/PressReleases/PressRelease012604a.asp
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=02VS0llCc5pzMPYZjg19507898
http://www.mobiusvc.com/pages.php?pn=team&sub=ggalanos-bio
http://www.reddwerks.com/r_compmanag.htm
Notice
how all of them make the same claim: they helped Motorola buy MW and
they grew the company. None of the Metrowerks leaders ever mention
Apple or Macintosh. They are embarrassed by it although it's what made
them wealthy.
Over 600 people worked at Metrowerks and they couldn't keep pace with
Apple? How big is the XCode team? I bet it's not 600 people. How big
was the original team that wrote CodeWarrior. Maybe 15 people?
Metrowerks management didn't want to make the product, it's that simple.
They
> didn't sell off their x86 technology because they were stupid, they did
> it because they have no use for it in their long-term product plan.
>
Stupid no, bad timing yes.
As always, the only *bad* thing in all this is the degree to which
> MW/FS keeps spinning out marketing jargon in lieu of providing any real
> information. They are clearly going to milk us as long as enough of us
> pay them to keep CW limping along for PPC development. Once that is no
> longer true and the current release of CW won't work with the current
> release of Mac OS X, they'll make some announcement about how in spite
> of grand efforts to keep the product alive, further development became
> impractical, blah blah blah, goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
>
I don't think they are that honorable. MW will simply keep pressing CDs
until there is nobody there who remembers how to make one that installs
on the current OS.
Unfortunately history repeats itself all the time:
la...@skytag.com
>> and I think it will be good news for Mac developers.
> Just when I am depressed thinking it's over and it's time to throw in
> the towel, MWRon makes a remark like that to give us hope. Well,
> here's hoping for great news this summer. :-)
Ron's been making remarks like this for as long as I can remember. I
stopped finding hope in them a long time ago. When they actually
deliver something, then maybe I'll have hope.
Larry
Don Bruder
la...@skytag.com wrote:
Where I come from, hope - and a buck and a quarter - will buy you a cup
of coffee.
With the way Ron's been waffling, I'm closing the book on
Metrowerks/CodeWarrior. It's been a fun ride, but it's becoming more
obvious with every "Don't touch that dial, folks! It'll be just another
couple commercials before we show you the way things end. Honest! No,
this time we really mean it!" message Ron posts that what's going on is
the credits are rolling, but they're hoping somebody buys another tub of
popcorn before they head for home.
Rather sad, but... <shrug> Hardly unexpected.
Sorry, Ron, but you (and Metrowerks/CodeWarrior) have lost all
credibility in my eyes, and with every "I promise I'll get you a
roadmap" post, you sink even deeper. It actually would have been better,
at least to my point of view, if you'd've just shut up and let CW die
while it still had a shred or two of dignity left to wrap itself in,
instead of trying to bullshit the troops the way you've been doing. As
it is, you've made yourself a laughingstock by trying to shill for an
outfit that's obviously in the final stages of sucking the pipe.
Been nice knowin' ya - I'm outta here. Looks like it's Xcode for me,
whether I like it or not.
--
Don Bruder - dak...@sonic.net - New Email policy in effect as of Feb. 21, 2004.
Short form: I'm trashing EVERY E-mail that doesn't contain a password in the
subject unless it comes from a "whitelisted" (pre-approved by me) address.
See <http://www.sonic.net/~dakidd/main/contact.html> for full details.
Christopher J. Henrich
Let's put it this way: wheb Ron actually gets one of those roadmaps,
that's when we can really be hopeful.
--
Chris Henrich
http://www.mathinteract.com
God just doesn't fit inside a single religion.
Bruce Wheaton
1119555402.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com, "la...@skytag.com"
<la...@skytag.com> wrote:
> I think Motorola/Freescale figured out a long time ago that there was
> an expiration date on selling processors for use in Macs, and after
> that the death of CW for Mac was inevitable. I remember when CW *was*
> CW for Mac development. Now you have to hunt for that product on a page
> full of products for embedded systems I don't even recognize. They
> didn't sell off their x86 technology because they were stupid, they did
> it because they have no use for it in their long-term product plan.
It occurs to me that Nokia also saw the writing on the wall, and presumably
being Codewarrior users themselves, bought the x86 compilation stuff so that
it wouldn't sink along with Metrowerks (or at least with the MW desktop
tools dept).
That's the real writing on the wall. After all, Nokia aren't going to start
selling IDEs, are they? And if they believed CW for desktops was going to
keep going, surely they'd just buy site licenses. It smells like a safety
move on their part.
Bruce Wheaton
Alwyn
Bruce Wheaton <br...@spearmorgan.com> wrote:
>
> After all, Nokia aren't going to start selling IDEs, are they?
Nokia have been selling Codewarrior Development Studio for Symbian OS at
least since February this year.
<http://press.nokia.com/PR/200502/978604_5.html>
<http://www.forum.nokia.com/main/1,6566,1_74,00.html>
Alwyn
Alwyn
Peter Lui <pelui_...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Notice
>
> how all of them make the same claim: they helped Motorola buy MW and
> they grew the company. None of the Metrowerks leaders ever mention
> Apple or Macintosh. They are embarrassed by it although it's what made
> them wealthy.
This is particularly striking in the case of Mr Bélanger, I think:
> Previously, he was Chairman/CEO of Metrowerks (NASDAQ) and helped grow the
> company from three people in 1991 to 250 in 1999. Metrowerks CodeWarrior won
> Software Product of the Year/1994 over [sic] 3,500 applications.
<http://www.reddwerks.com/r_compmanag.htm>
As everybody knows, the Apple Macintosh is a toy system, so he does not
care to have his involvement with it mentioned on his serious business
profile. Yet, as you say, it's what made his career and his fortune.
> He won a World Class Outstanding Achievement Award/1997 and was finalist for
> the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur-of-the-Year Award-Austin/96. Motorola SPS
> purchased Metrowerks in 1999 for a total of $100M...
at the very height of the dot-com boom. Lucky, lucky Mr Bélanger!
Alwyn
Peter Lui
> It occurs to me that Nokia also saw the writing on the wall, and presumably
> being Codewarrior users themselves, bought the x86 compilation stuff so that
> it wouldn't sink along with Metrowerks (or at least with the MW desktop
> tools dept).
No doubt.
That's the real writing on the wall. After all, Nokia aren't going to start
> selling IDEs, are they? And if they believed CW for desktops was going to
> keep going, surely they'd just buy site licenses. It smells like a safety
> move on their part.
>
Metrowerks was essentially a large software contractor. Rarely did they
develop anything without the financial backing of a large company. Be
it Apple, Sun, Sony, Sega, Nintendo, Symbian (Nokia et al), Motorola,
Be, Palm and the list goes on.
In every case, those companies bankrolled or subsidized the development
and when they didn't like what was produced, they pulled out but
Metrowerks continued to mislead the customer there was a product and
support to squeeze every last nickel out of them.
In Nokia's case, there was probably a meeting between the two companies
where Freescale offered their condolences about future development but
Nokia probably had a clause in their contract that allowed them to
acquire the assets and buy time for the developers. I have no idea what
they're actually going to do with it long term.
I'm curious to see what "roadmap" comes out. To date it's been a
Metrowerks vaporware offering. But even if one does appear, who is
going to make it? All of the developers and managers have either, quit,
been fired or moved to other projects. The best they can do at this
point, is open source, have a fire sale or leave up the website of the
dead company for several years like Gibson did when it acquired Opcode
Systems.
la...@skytag.com
> Metrowerks vaporware offering. But even if one does appear, who is
> going to make it? All of the developers and managers have either, quit,
> been fired or moved to other projects.
Yes, that's a huge question. I know at least some of their talent has
moved on, plus they have no working relationship with Apple. Even if
they really wanted to get the Mac IDE back on track, how could they
possibly make that happen? And how can anyone find any hope in anything
Ron says under the circumstances? Who's willing to bet money we'll see
that roadmap Ron has asked for before his vacation? ;-)
Larry
MW Ron
"Christopher J. Henrich" <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>Let's put it this way: wheb Ron actually gets one of those roadmaps,
>that's when we can really be hopeful.
Not only that if it isn't a roadmap with deliverables that are
absolutely reasonable I'll let you know. I will not take anything that
is not acheivable.
MW Ron
>It occurs to me that Nokia also saw the writing on the wall, and presumably
>being Codewarrior users themselves, bought the x86 compilation stuff so that
>it wouldn't sink along with Metrowerks (or at least with the MW desktop
>tools dept).
Nokia has invested a lot into the Symbian OS an open sourced operating
system in the same way that Apple has invested into Mac OS X.
In the same way Apple wanted to control the look and fee and development
of the operating system by having control over the tools Nokia also
wanted to have this control. it was smart of Apple to do so, it was
smart of Nokia to do so.
>That's the real writing on the wall. After all, Nokia aren't going to start
>selling IDEs, are they? And if they believed CW for desktops was going to
>keep going, surely they'd just buy site licenses. It smells like a safety
>move on their part.
Nokia does indeed develop and produce their own Symiban compilers and
they currently license the CodeWarrior IDE. The Symbian OS like Mac
OS X is agnostic about the chip that it runs on and it does run on intel
chips as well as others.
jollyprez
Love that shirt. Still have it. Still wear it on special occasions.
I switched my last two current projects from MW to XCode in the last
two months. Got rid of the last vestiges of PP and support code (though
I'd already gone over to Carbon / NIB in 2003), and use CF for
everything. It's not that bad - at least not for me. And Cocoa rocks.
I'll keep MW to keep some of my legacy apps going (some as old as
1994!), and mull over the future.
'Jolly
Peter Lui
> Yes, that's a huge question. I know at least some of their talent has
> moved on, plus they have no working relationship with Apple. Even if
> they really wanted to get the Mac IDE back on track, how could they
> possibly make that happen? And how can anyone find any hope in anything
> Ron says under the circumstances?
Actually after WWDC the possibility of a solid roadmap has greatly
increased because the road leads to obsolescence.
Metrowerks has ported their technology so many times to stave off death
they are simply unable to make the original version anymore. That's why
MW spent a lot of last year in this newsgroup promising a new IDE that
will never materialize on Mac OS X.
Metrowerks had great tools that kept up with Apple technology even when
there were potholes in the road like Copland (gigantic sinkhole sized
potholes).
Then they fell behind as they snubbed their noses at Mach-O and
modernizing the look/feel of their IDE.
Now they are being left behind by the very same hardware transition
that made them famous.
Ironic.
Alwyn
MW Ron <mw...@metrowerks.com> wrote:
>
> Nokia has invested a lot into the Symbian OS an open sourced operating
> system in the same way that Apple has invested into Mac OS X.
There are certainly open-source projects associated with Symbian, but I
believe the source for the OS itself is closed.
Incidentally, followers of Apple will be aware that Nokia intend to use
the KHTML- and KJS-based WebCore and JavaScriptCore for their
forthcoming browser for their Series 60 mobile phones.
> In the same way Apple wanted to control the look and fee and development
> of the operating system by having control over the tools Nokia also
> wanted to have this control. it was smart of Apple to do so, it was
> smart of Nokia to do so.
So the implication is that it would be smart of Apple to buy CodeWarrior
for Macintosh? Hmm...
> >That's the real writing on the wall. After all, Nokia aren't going to start
> >selling IDEs, are they? And if they believed CW for desktops was going to
> >keep going, surely they'd just buy site licenses. It smells like a safety
> >move on their part.
>
> Nokia does indeed develop and produce their own Symiban compilers and
> they currently license the CodeWarrior IDE. The Symbian OS like Mac
> OS X is agnostic about the chip that it runs on and it does run on intel
> chips as well as others.
The problem here is that I can't see what Metrowerks have that Apple
could possibly want to pay for. They already have Xcode and a complete
set of tools, together with the promise of Intel's x86 compilers, which
are deemed the best in the market. I doubt if Metrowerks' PowerPC
compilers would interest them either, since, unlike IBM's XL range, they
have no PPC970 (G5) support.
Alwyn
Ben Artin
Alwyn <dt015...@mac.com> wrote:
> The problem here is that I can't see what Metrowerks have that Apple
> could possibly want to pay for.
The plc compiler, the STL knowledge (aka Howard) and the C++ compiler knowledge.
MW C++ compiler is still several times faster than gcc.
Ben
--
If this message helped you, consider buying an item
from my wish list: <http://artins.org/ben/wishlist>
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Alwyn
Ben Artin <mac...@artins.org> wrote:
> In article <dt015a1979-B5427...@text.news.blueyonder.co.uk>,
> Alwyn <dt015...@mac.com> wrote:
>
> > The problem here is that I can't see what Metrowerks have that Apple
> > could possibly want to pay for.
>
> The plc compiler, the STL knowledge (aka Howard) and the C++ compiler
> knowledge.
> MW C++ compiler is still several times faster than gcc.
That Metrowerks have these assets is indisputable. Whether Apple would
be in a position to acquire them in such a way that they could put them
to good use is another matter.
The message from MW Ron to which I responded is a curious one, coming
from him. Whatever other implications it may have, I find it hard to
interpret it as anything other than a farewell to the Apple platform.
I suppose Metrowerks' departure from the Macintosh development scene
sooner or later is inevitable, but I still find it sad. However, it
would be a nice thought if a genuine transfer of technology could be
effected.
Alwyn
sdfi...@spamcop.net
> Ron's been making remarks like this for as long as I can remember. I
> stopped finding hope in them a long time ago. When they actually
> deliver something, then maybe I'll have hope.
I remember quite a few personal attacks on me when I mentioned this
back in October 2003. Looks like a lot more people are coming around to
this way of thinking. Good.
Right now, I think the only decent product Metrowerks has is their Palm
OS Garnet compilers -- compilers based on the old Mac 680x0 compilers
and hosted only on Windows. It seems roughly half the technology in the
last version is licensed from other companies, and the command line
version of the compilers don't work at all, but since PalmSource is too
busy making Cobalt compilers (that nobody but them cares about),
Metrowerks will probably be able to sell the Palm OS product for a
while.
Peter Lui
> problem here is that I can't see what Metrowerks have that Apple could
> possibly want to pay for.
Now it's way too late but back in 1999 when the future for Mac OS X was
uncertain and CodeWarrior didn't suck ass like it does today, it made
sense.
If Apple bought Power Computing for $400M they could have spared a few
peanuts to buy MW but guess what happened? The greedy management wasn't
going to get rich off any offer from Apple so they roped in Motorola
for $100M then split.
MW could have easily signed a technology transfer agreement anytime
after the buyout but instead they chose to snub Apple and in doing so
all of their customers. Now the tables have turned: MW is desperate to
sell but nobody wants to buy.
la...@skytag.com
>> In the same way Apple wanted to control the look and fee and development
>> of the operating system by having control over the tools Nokia also
>> wanted to have this control. it was smart of Apple to do so, it was
>> smart of Nokia to do so.
>
> So the implication is that it would be smart of Apple to buy CodeWarrior
> for Macintosh? Hmm...
No, no such implication. He's only saying it was smart of Apple to
assume a proactive role in providing a development environment instead
of leaving it to another company. Nothing more and nothing less.
>> The problem here is that I can't see what Metrowerks have that Apple
>> could possibly want to pay for.
>
> The plc compiler, the STL knowledge (aka Howard) and the C++ compiler
> knowledge.
> MW C++ compiler is still several times faster than gcc.
Mac OS 9 is was several times faster than Mac OS X. Apple's solution to
this problem is the same as it was then: They'll work on the speed, and
in the meantime you can buy a faster Mac. Maybe even a cluster you can
use as a server farm. :-)
> That Metrowerks have these assets is indisputable. Whether Apple would
> be in a position to acquire them in such a way that they could put them
> to good use is another matter.
I doubt Apple has any interest in this. They don't have a good
relationship with MW, and what they would get in such an acquisition
would be a bunch of code they didn't write (though some of the people
who wrote it may now be at Apple). When you acquire code from another
company, you have two options:
- Spend a lot of time learning it.
- Use it as is until you junk it because you don't have anyone who
understands it well enough to maintain or improve it.
Of course, I have no inside information about Apple's plans and
intentions, but IMO Apple has too many Unix-heads and gcc is the
open-source, Unix, blah blah blah way, so I just don't see this
happening.
> MW could have easily signed a technology transfer agreement anytime
> after the buyout but instead they chose to snub Apple and in doing so
> all of their customers. Now the tables have turned: MW is desperate to
> sell but nobody wants to buy.
Why do you think they're desperate? I think they don't care. The fact
is that we don't know anything about what MW wants. They may well be
more than happy to let the Mac market go. Everything may very well be
going according to their plans. *We* tend to think of things
differently, but then Mac development is very significant to us.
MW-like Freescale-is in a very different boat. Freescale stated
that the G4 they sell to Apple represents 3% of their business. No
large corporation is going to lose sleep over a niche product that
represents 3% of its market. At this point I doubt CW for Mac
development represents over 3% of MW's business.
Larry
la...@skytag.com
> they are simply unable to make the original version anymore. That's why
> MW spent a lot of last year in this newsgroup promising a new IDE that
> will never materialize on Mac OS X.
I suspect that's true. I suspect that many of their better engineers
are gone now. After all, if you were really good, why would you hang
around MW waiting for the inevitable pink slip?
>
> Metrowerks had great tools that kept up with Apple technology even when
> there were potholes in the road like Copland (gigantic sinkhole sized
> potholes).
>
> Then they fell behind as they snubbed their noses at Mach-O
I don't know all the politics behind this. I'm under the impression
that Apple did some snubbing early on, and it may well be that we're
seeing the inevitable consequence of Apple's actions. If I ran MW and
Apple started making it difficult to do CW, I'm pretty sure I'd think
about abandoning it at some point. I just don't see how any company
could compete with a free alternative when the free product is done by
the people who control the technology and information needed to do
those products. There may have also been other reasons MW didn't see a
long-term future for CW. Does anyone contributing here really know the
whole story?
> and modernizing the look/feel of their IDE.
You mean I'm not the only one who wanted them to update the look and
feel? See, Ron, I told ya. LOL
Larry
Alwyn
la...@skytag.com wrote:
>
> Of course, I have no inside information about Apple's plans and
> intentions, but IMO Apple has too many Unix-heads and gcc is the
> open-source, Unix, blah blah blah way, so I just don't see this
> happening.
I have no doubt that Apple's decision to rely on open-source tools (most
especially GCC) is a business decision supported at the very highest
level. It makes perfect business sense to have a lot of people do most
of the heavy lifting for free.
And then of course there are IBM's and Intel's compilers for the more
demanding customers. I'm sure these firms lose money on their developer
tool operations like almost everyone else in the business, but being
important processor manufacturers, they can hope to offset their losses
on software against increased chip sales.
Freescale too would want to produce software that promotes their chips -
silicon enablement is, I believe, the term they currently like to use.
As a profit centre, I'm sure Metrowerks was lacklustre at best, but it
may have better prospects as a 'silicon-enabling' cost centre. I have
little doubt that this is what it's really about.
<snip>
> Why do you think they're desperate?
I think Metrowerks as a company has been in crisis because their
business model didn't work, hence the dropping of various projects, the
sale of assets to Nokia and the current 'restructuring'.
> I think they don't care. The fact
> is that we don't know anything about what MW wants.
More relevant at this point would be what Freescale want.
> They may well be
> more than happy to let the Mac market go. Everything may very well be
> going according to their plans. *We* tend to think of things
> differently, but then Mac development is very significant to us.
> MW-like Freescale-is in a very different boat. Freescale stated
> that the G4 they sell to Apple represents 3% of their business. No
> large corporation is going to lose sleep over a niche product that
> represents 3% of its market. At this point I doubt CW for Mac
> development represents over 3% of MW's business.
I don't know about the percentages, but the one thing we can be sure of
is that the number of Macintosh CodeWarrior customers is diminishing
quite steeply and will never recover. What sane business person would
want to keep the product alive?
Apart from that, I suspect that the relationship between Freescale and
Apple executives has also cooled lately and is now in the vicinity of
zero degrees Kelvin. In such an atmosphere, any generosity on
Freescale's part would be out of the question.
Alwyn
Peter Lui
> MW-like Freescale-is in a very different boat. Freescale stated
> that the G4 they sell to Apple represents 3% of their business. No
> large corporation is going to lose sleep over a niche product that
> represents 3% of its market.
I suppose Intel has no interest in 3% of the Freescale business then?
3% of $6B is $200M. No company wants to loose that amount of revenue
and it's simplistic thinking that companies enjoy downsizing, paying
severance, benefits, upsetting the employees, losing revenue, paying
for vacant buildings, etc.
At one time the precentage of revenue was obviously much higher when
there was no G5 but it's been an ever shrinking percentage. They threw
away the market for high performance high margin processors to make
slower low power versions. At one time they built both high and low end
chips but Motorola deliberately chose to follow this path that sent
Apple to IBM and now to Intel.
Apple was a high profile customer. Losing them is a huge blow to their
semiconductor business in more ways than just short term revenue.
> At this point I doubt CW for Mac
> development represents over 3% of MW's business.
Who can say. Ever since the buyout, they've buried their financials
from public view. I imagine they are quite embarassing.