WABI, SunSelect’s ace-in-the-hole Windows Applications Binary Interface for Unix software, moved closer to being adopted by the Common Open Software Environment crew last week as licensing agreements circulated for signature. A pawn in the chess match between Unix and Microsoft Corp, WABI is starting to be described in some circles as more important than COSE itself. It is believed that Unix System Laboratories Inc, Univel Inc, IBM Corp, Hewlett-Packard Co, SunSoft Inc and Sun Microsystems Inc will all pick it up. As we went to press there were also unconfirmed rumours of Digital Equipment Corp, currently a non-COSE participant and a firm Microsoft ally, being interested. SunSelect is offering WABI licensees lower royalties on Intel Corp machines than on RISC and less on bundled products than unbundled. Contract terms are volume-based and ask for $18 per-user bundled and $36 unbundled (or in cases of unbundling, 30% of net revenues, whichever is more) for single-user Intel boxes in volumes of 100,000. Comparative figures for RISC machines are $27 and $54. As volumes increase, royalties decrease, so that for single-user Intel machines, bundled and unbundled, the respective payments are: $12 and $24 for 100,000 to 250,000 units; $9 and $20 for 250,000 to 500,000 units; $6 and $12 for 500,000 to 1m units and $5 and $10 over 1m units. For RISC single-user machines bundled and unbundled, the respective royalties are: $18 and $16 for 100,000 to 250,000 units; $12 and $24 for 250,000 to 500,000 units; $9 and $20 for 500,000 to 1m units and $5 and $20 for over 1m units. This pricing apparently holds for multi-user sites of up to four users. At five or more users, a discount, said to be 25%, kicks in. In the past, this kind of pricing scheme has been notoriously difficult to manage. Meanwhile SunSelect continues to be skittish on any questions about WABI’s list price, packaging, availability or anything else substantive, ostensibly because of the gala rollout it has planned for May 5 at the 500-seat Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, having ditched plans to hold it at the giant Paramount Threatre in Oakland, California. Apparently, however, WABI has been turned into a product and packaged, and there is said to be some kind of cross-productisation afoot with parent company Sun Microsystems Inc. SunSelect says it will integrate WABI and the Insignia Solutions Ltd-derived SunPC so users can run both Windows and MS-DOS programs. SunSelect doesn’t want to define exactly what integrate (its word) means or how tightly bound over time the products will become, but it seems that they will still be two separate things. WABI is said to run any well-behaved Windows application like Excel, Word, Ami, Harvard Graphics and the Microsoft packages.
Will actually sue
The betting pool on whether Microsoft will actually sue Sun over the Windows-on-Unix WABI application binary interface waxes and wanes. Close observers of Microsoft say that what really interest it is the licensing fees it says Sun should be paying. If Microsoft decides not to sue – and we wonder if it can decide before WABI is introduced – observers say that it will hassle Sun to death. They note that Microsoft is already talking about bringing out a similar product of its own, a typical Microsoft tactic, and will probably create a good deal of fear, uncertainty and doubt over WABI’s technical prowess and whether it will be able to keep up with Microsoft’s innovations. As a matter of fact, some people think Microsoft will purposely create features that are difficult to clone. However, there is the school of thought that argues that Microsoft doesn’t want to restrict Windows unduly because the more ubiquitous it is the better Microsoft’s own position.
