Metrowerks

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Founded by Greg Galanos in 1985 as Metropolis Computer Networks in Hudson, Quebec.

Metrowerks originally developed software development tools for the Apple Macintosh and UNIX workstations.

Its first product was a Modula-2 compiler originally developed by Niklaus Wirth, the creator of the ALGOL W, Pascal and Modula-2 programming languages. But had limited success with this product.

 In 1992, it began to develop development tools for Apple Macintosh computers based on the newly announced PowerPC processor as well as legacy support for Motorola 68k chipsets.

It shipped the first commercial release of CodeWarrior in May 1994 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, it was a great success and Metrowerks was recognised as helping Apple succeed in its risky transition to a new processor.

CodeWarrior developed by Metrowerks based on a C compiler and environment for the Motorola 68K. The first versions of CodeWarrior targeted the PowerPC Macintosh, with much of the development done by a group from the original THINK C team. CodeWarrior was faster than Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW), the development tools written by Apple.

In March 1994 Metrowerks had its initial public offering, trading under the symbol MTWKF (NASDAQ foreign exchange) and continued to trade on Canadian exchanges.

Also in 1994, Metrowerks opened a small sales and R&D office in Austin, Texas to be closer to the manufacturers of the new PowerPC chips, IBM and Motorola. Metrowerks later moved its corporate headquarters to Austin along with Greg Galanos (Founder/President/CTO) and Jean Belanger (Chairman/CEO).

In August 1996, Metrowerks announced CodeWarrior for BeBox, a BeOS version of the IDE named BeIDE .

By 1996 Metrowerks had begun expanding its CodeWarrior product line to target platforms besides Macintosh computers, including:

Mac OS PowerPC; Mac OS 68k; General Magic's Magic Cap OS; BeOS; Microsoft Windows x86; NEC v8xx; VRxxxx; General MIPS (ISA I-IV); General PowerPC embedded; General 68k embedded; General Coldfire embedded; General ARM embedded; PlayStation, PS2 and PSP; Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii; Sega Saturn; Java tools; Nokia SymbianOS; PalmPilot

In 1997, Metrowerks produced CodeWarrior Latitude, by acquiring the principal assets of The Latitude Group Inc., including: a software compatibility layer to port Macintosh applications to UNIX systems, with the intent to use it to port CodeWarrior to run on Solaris, and to extend it to facilitate porting MacOS software to Rhapsody.

In August 1999, Motorola Semiconductor Products Sector, or SPS acquired Metrowerks for roughly $100 million in cash. After the acquisition, Jean Belanger moved to become VP of business development in SPS and after a short stint as Director of Software Strategy for SPS, Greg Galanos left to become a General Partner and Managing Director at SOFTBANK.

After Metrowerks was acquired by Motorola in 1999, the company concentrated on embedded applications, devoting a smaller fraction of their efforts to compilers for desktop computers.

Software Products

CodeWarrior

CodeWarrior
1995
CodeWarrior was an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for editing, compiling, and debugging software for several microcontrollers and microprocessors used in embedded systems (Freescale ColdFire...

Manufacturer : Metrowerks
Type : Software

CodeManager Tools

CodeManager Tools
1996
CodeManager Tools is branded as "The source code management system for Macintosh" marketed by Metrowerks and labelled as Developers' Release Tools.

Manufacturer : Metrowerks
Type : Software

CodeWarrior Discover Programming Edition Two

CodeWarrior Discover Programming Edition Two
1997
The World's Most Powerful Integrated Development Environment.

Manufacturer : Metrowerks
Type : Software

CodeWarrior Professional Release 5

CodeWarrior Professional Release 5
1999
CodeWarrior was an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for editing, compiling, and debugging software for several microcontrollers and microprocessors used in embedded systems (Freescale ColdFire...

Manufacturer : Metrowerks
Type : Software


 

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