Mainsoft

Mainsoft is a software company, founded in 1993, that develops interoperability software products for Microsoft Windows and Linux/Unix platforms.^[1]

Mainsoft

Industry	Software industry
Founded	1993; 31 years ago (1993)
Products	Grasshopper
Website	Company website

History

Founding

Mainsoft was founded in 1993, mainly to propose integration products between Windows and other systems.^[2]

Mainsoft was one of the main providers for the Microsoft Windows Interface Source Environment (WISE) program, a licensing program from Microsoft that allowed developers to recompile and run Windows-based applications on Unix and Macintosh platforms.^[3] Its first product, MainWin, was an implementation of the Windows API for Unix systems such as Sun Solaris, AIX, HP-UX and UnixWare, offering "most of 600 Windows calls" and reportedly allowing Windows 3.0, and later 3.1, applications recompiled for target platforms to run natively at acceptable performance without recourse to emulation.^[4]

WISE software development kits (SDKs) were not directly provided by Microsoft. Instead Microsoft established partnerships to several software providers which in turn sold WISE SDKs to end-users.^[5]

After the WISE program, Microsoft extended its agreements with Mainsoft to port Windows Media Player 6.3 and Internet Explorer to Unix.^[6]

Microsoft integration

Since then, Mainsoft activity shifted to integration of Microsoft SharePoint into IBM products^[7][8][9] (IBM Lotus Notes, IBM WebSphere, Rational Jazz) and products focusing on .NET Framework and JavaEE.

To be able to develop WISE SDKs, software providers needed to have access to Windows internals source code. In 2004, more than 30000 source files from Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 were leaked to the internet. It was later discovered that the source of the leak originated from Mainsoft.^[10][11]

See also

• Internet Explorer for UNIX
• Grasshopper, a Mainsoft framework to allow the use of VisualBasic and C# applications on a Java Application Server

References

1. "About Mainsoft". mainsoft.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
2. "Mainsoft - CNET Download". Download.com. Retrieved 2021-09-16.
3. "Windows Interface Source Environment (WISE)". January 1995. Archived from the original on 30 March 2008. Retrieved 26 April 2008.
4. "French Start-Up has Windows API for Unix". Unigram/X. 15 February 1993. p. 1. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
5. "Bristol Technology v. Microsoft Corporation, 114 F. Supp. 2d 59 | Casetext Search + Citator". casetext.com. Retrieved 2021-10-22.
6. "Windows Source Leak Traces Back to Mainsoft". 2004-02-13. Retrieved 2008-04-26. Mainsoft extended its WISE agreement with Microsoft in March 2000 to include access to the Windows 2000 source. Microsoft subsequently employed Mainsoft to port Windows Media Player 6.3 and Internet Explorer to Unix.
7. "SharePoint Integrator – Product Suite". mainsoft.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-28. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
8. "Mainsoft links Microsoft SharePoint, IBM Jazz". infoworld.com. 2009-03-17. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
9. "Sharepoint gets Notes 8.5 integration from Mainsoft". techworld.com.au. 2009-06-17. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
10. "Mainsoft Eyed as Windows Source Code Leak". internetnews.co. 2004-02-13. Retrieved 2009-07-03.
11. "Microsoft Updates Code Leak Statement, Mainsoft Fingered". windowsitpro.com. 2004-02-19. Archived from the original on 2010-02-01. Retrieved 2009-07-03.

External links

• Company website
• MainWin, a Mainsoft platform allowing to port Windows applications to Unix and Linux