Transitive, the firm developing technology from Manchester
University, has launched its first product, which allows software
compiled for one processor and operating system to run on a
different processor and OS.
QuickTransit works directly on the binaries, translating the
code in real-time as it is required. The firm claims performance is
80 per cent of that which could be achieved by porting the software
to produce a native application.
"It's aimed at desktop workstations, servers and mainframes,"
said Bob Wiederhold, CEO at Transitive. "Inititally we're focused
on computer OEMs, such as Sun, HP and IBM."
Weiderhold hopes these firms will buy QuickTransit and ship a
copy with each machine they sell. Porting software to new machines
can be prohibitively expensive, or impossible with older legacy
software where source code may be unavailable.
There are four initial products in the Transitive range,
designed to run on either Itanium, Opteron, x86 or Power/PowerPC
processors. Each product has several front ends, so a version
running on an Opteron server could run software originally compiled
for a MIPS or PowerPC machine, for example.
Eventually the firm wants to extend its products into the
embedded market. "We think we have a huge opportunity in the
embedded space," said Wiederhold. As a small company, the firm
decided to start in the potentially lucrative computer arena.
The real-time nature of many embedded systems also makes a
translation-type product more tricky to design, he admitted.
www.transitive.com