Insignia's SoftWindows
Run Windows on a Mac
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The Company
Insignia Solutions was founded in 1986 with the goal of developing software to allow non-Intel system to run PC software. In fact, their mission statement said, “To be the premier, worldwide supplier of quality software solutions that enable our customers to use Windows applications on diverse systems throughout the enterprise and over the Internet.” Their first product (SoftPC) brought PC applications to Sun Workstations. They soon added a version for Macintosh. (We’ll talk about that below.) The company went public in 1995.
The same year, they introduced the NTRIGUE Windows application server. In 1996, they released JENE, an implementation of Java for embedded devices. Around this time, it appears that Insignia decided to focus on Java. They sold NTrigue to Citrix in March 1998. The following year, they sold SoftWindows and SoftPC to FWB Software.
In the early 2000s, Insignia moved into mobile phones. But apparently they weren’t very successful. In 2008, the company’s assets were acquired by SmithMicro Software.
The Application
As I stated above, SoftPC was release in 1988. In the years that followed, Insignia worked with Microsoft to improve support for Windows applications. In May of 1993, the two companies expanded their relationship. They signed a deal that allowed Insignia to distribute Windows with their SoftPC software. The new package with renamed SoftWindows and announced the following year. From their site, “Insignia Solutions and Apple Computer announced that SoftWindows would be bundled on certain configurations of Power Macintosh computers, giving customers the best of both worlds - - the power and ease-of-use of the Macintosh and access to thousands of Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS applications -- in a single purchase.” Subsequent version of SoftWindows included Windows 3, 95 and 98.
I should note that the above ad mentions Macintosh, but SoftWindows also worked on the following platforms: SGI IRIX, Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM AIX, NeXTSTEP, Motorola 88000, OpenVMS on VAX and DEC Alpha systems, DEC ULTRIX.
Tim Robertson from MyMac had this to say about SoftWindows 98:
While I find almost every application I need is also available for the Mac OS, there are times when I do need to have access to PC software. For those times, I have found SoftWindows 98 a viable solution. Not only is the price right, the software works as promised. And while the speed is not as good as a true Windows machine, it is cheaper than either an actual PC or a PC card. It works, it’s stable, and with the recommended system requirements, it’s fast enough to get some work done.
If you have the need to run Windows, this product is a winner. Hats off to Insignia Solutions for a fine product at a fair price.
James Coates from the Chicago Tribune had this to say about SoftWindows 95:
Those of us vexed with the need to run software on the dwindling Macintosh platform without losing the powers of the Windows majority can rejoice at this latest version of Insignia's Microsoft emulator for Macintosh machines.
For this review, the near-ultimate in Macs _ a brand-new 266 megahertz G3 PowerMac with 160 megabytes of RAM and a 6-gigabyte hard drive _ using SoftWindows ran Windows 95 programs with all the speed and power of a 266 MHz Packard Bell Pentium.
All the Pentium pizzazz was there, only running on the Mac. The Web browser came up fast enough to use as a slide viewer for photo files, and games including MechWarrior and the latest Doom played with full SoundBlaster sound and 3D video.
But best of all, whatever you do in Windows 95 can be clipped and moved to the Macintosh side, and vice versa. For example, you can run Lotus cc:mail for Windows, then paste text into the Mac version of Microsoft Office 98.
Insignia executives emphasized in interviews 5.0 version's enhancements to Microsoft's own Windows 95 code, adapted to run on the PowerMac and the new G3 chips. This speed jumps out when you run resource gobblers like Microsoft Internet Explorer and Photoshop for Windows.
Nobody will be more delighted than Web page developers, who now can use killer Mac-based site-creation software and then see exactly how the pages will appear to the hordes of Pentium users.
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I didn’t know Apple actually bundled SoftWindows with Power Macs at one point. Anything to get that “Pentium pizzazz!”