Metrowerks was a company that developed software development tools for various desktop, handheld, embedded, and gaming platforms. Its flagship product,

CodeWarrior CodeWarrior is an integrated development environment (IDE) published by NXP Semiconductors for editing, compiling, and debugging software for several microcontrollers and microprocessors (NXP ColdFire, Freescale ColdFire, ColdFire+, Kinetis, Qori ...

, comprised an IDE,

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

s, linkers, debuggers,

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

, and related tools. In 1999 it was acquired by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

and in 2005 it was spun-off as part of

Freescale Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedde ...

, which continues to sell these tools. In 2015, Freescale Semiconductor was absorbed into NXP.

History

Founded by Greg Galanos in 1985 as Metropolis Computer Networks in

Hudson, Quebec Hudson is an Greater Montreal, off-island suburb of Montreal, with a population of 5,4112021 Census. It is located on the south-west bank of the lower Ottawa River, in Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality. Situated about west of down ...

, Metrowerks originally developed software development tools for the

Apple Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

and

UNIX Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

workstations. Its first product was a

Modula-2 Modula-2 is a structured, procedural programming language developed between 1977 and 1985/8 by Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zurich. It was created as the language for the operating system and application software of the Lilith personal workstation. It w ...

compiler originally developed by

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth ( IPA: ) (15 February 1934 – 1 January 2024) was a Swiss computer scientist. He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Tu ...

, the creator of the

ALGOL W ALGOL W is a programming language. It is based on a proposal for ALGOL X by Niklaus Wirth and Tony Hoare as a successor to ALGOL 60. ALGOL W is a relatively simple upgrade of the original ALGOL 60, adding string, bitstring, complex number a ...

, Pascal and Modula-2 programming languages. It had limited success with this product. In 1992, it began an effort to develop development tools for Macintosh computers based on the newly announced

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

processor as well as legacy support for

68k The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

chipsets. It shipped the first commercial release of CodeWarrior in May 1994 at Apple's

Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is currently held at Apple Park in California. The event is used to showcase new software and technologies in the macO ...

. The release was a great success. Metrowerks received much credit for helping Apple succeed in its risky transition to a new processor. In March 1994 Metrowerks had its

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

, trading under the symbol MTWKF (

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...

foreign exchange) and continued to trade on Canadian exchanges. MetrowerksInterior

Also in 1994, Metrowerks opened a small sales and R&D office in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

to be closer to the manufacturers of the new PowerPC chips,

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

and

. Metrowerks later moved its corporate headquarters to Austin along with Greg Galanos (Founder/President/CTO) and Jean Belanger (Chairman/CEO). By 1996 Metrowerks had begun expanding its CodeWarrior product line to target platforms besides Macintosh computers, including: * Mac OS PowerPC * Mac OS

General Magic General Magic was an American software and electronics company co-founded by Bill Atkinson, Andy Hertzfeld, and Marc Porat. Based in Mountain View, California, the company developed precursors to "USB, software modems, small touchscreens, to ...

Magic Cap Magic Cap (short for Magic Communicating Applications Platform) is a discontinued object-oriented operating system for PDAs developed by General Magic. Tony Fadell was a contributor to the platform, Bill Atkinson shows the credits screen on M ...

OS *

BeOS BeOS is a discontinued operating system for personal computers that was developed by Be Inc. It was conceived for the company's BeBox personal computer which was released in 1995. BeOS was designed for multitasking, multithreading, and a graph ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel, based on the 8086 microprocessor and its 8-bit-external-bus variant, the 8088. Th ...

NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered at the NEC Supertower in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. It provides IT and network solutions, including cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI), Inte ...

v8xx, VRxxxx * General MIPS (ISA I-IV) * General PowerPC embedded * General 68k embedded * General Coldfire embedded * General

ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between ...

embedded *

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

PS2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 November, in Australia on 30 November, ...

and PSP *

Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

and

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America, and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...

Sega Saturn The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it is the successor to the succes ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

tools *

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

SymbianOS Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

(

toolchain A toolchain is a set of software development tools used to build and otherwise develop software. Often, the tools are executed sequentially and form a pipeline such that the output of one tool is the input for the next. Sometimes the term is us ...

sold to Nokia in late 2004) *

PalmPilot The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc (then a subsidiary of U.S. Robotics, later 3Com). These devices were launched on March 10, 1997. Accessories and pricing ...

In 1997, Metrowerks acquired the principal assets of The Latitude Group Inc., 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 macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

software to

Rhapsody Rhapsody may refer to: Ancient Greece * A work of epic poetry, or part of one, that is suitable for recitation at one time ** Rhapsode, a classical Greek professional performer of epic poetry Computer software * Rhapsody (online music service) ...

. This will result in the creation of CodeWarrior Latitude. In August 1999, Motorola's semiconductor sector (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 Venture Capital, known as Mobius Venture Capital since December 2001. David Perkins, previously SVP of Business Development at Metrowerks, assumed the title of President and CEO. Metrowerks subsequently acquired a small number of other companies including HIWARE AG,

Embedix Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999. History Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' origin ...

and Applied Microsystems Corp. in November 2002 for US$40-Million. In 2002, David Perkins assumed the role of Corporate Vice President of NCSG at Motorola SPS; Jim Welch (previously the CFO of Metrowerks) assumed the role of CEO. In late 2003, Jim Welch left to become CEO of Wireless Valley Communications and Matthew R. Harris (who was previously CEO of

Lineo Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999. History Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' origin ...

and Embedix) became the new CEO of Metrowerks. In 2003, Motorola spun off its semiconductor group as a separate company named

Freescale Semiconductor Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embedde ...

. In late 2004,

purchased the

development tools, including members of the engineering, for US$30-Million. In early 2005, Matt Harris left Metrowerks to become CEO of

Volantis Volantis was a mobile internet software company based in Guildford, England, now owned by Antenna Software, Inc. Volantis provides mobile applications and software solutions which give operators and enterprises access to a content delivery pla ...

at which time Freescale management decided to absorb Metrowerks completely and not treat it as a wholly owned subsidiary. CodeWarrior for Mac OS had successfully made the transition to Apple's new

Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

operating system, supporting the

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...

development environment. However, Apple invested heavily in their own development tools for OS X (

Xcode Xcode is a suite of developer tools for building apps on Apple devices. It includes an integrated development environment (IDE) of the same name for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. It w ...

), distributed free of charge and always up to date. The increasing prominence of the

Cocoa Cocoa may refer to: Chocolate * Chocolate * ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree * Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao'' * Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...

development environment marginalized CodeWarrior, and finally the surprise announcement of the Mac's switch to Intel processors – mere weeks after Freescale had sold the Metrowerks Intel compiler tools to Nokia – signalled the end of CodeWarrior on the Mac. In July 2005, Freescale discontinued CodeWarrior for Mac OS, as the same time it was also divesting from any tools targeting non-Freescale silicon. In October 2005, Freescale retired the Metrowerks name but continues to develop CodeWarrior and other developer technologies as part of Freescale's Developer Technology Organization. Metrowerks' logo of the iconic factory worker and other visual branding was created by illustrato
Bill Russell
Addendum: Freescale's website now says, "CodeWarrior for Mac OS has been discontinued and is no longer sold or supported." It has several downloadable updates, but the most recent modification date is 15 August 2005.

Former Corporate Addresses

8920 Business Park Drive, Austin, TX 78759, USA

3925 West Braker Lane, Austin, TX, 78759, USA

2201 Donley Drive Suite 310, Austin, TX 78758, USA

2601 McHale Court, Austin, TX 78758, USA
(Warehouse)
9801 Metric Boulevard, Austin, TX 78758, USA

7700 West Parmer Lane, Austin, TX 78753, USA

CodeWarrior

Starting in 1994, CodeWarrior was the main product from Metrowerks. It was an

Integrated Development Environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a Application software, software application that provides comprehensive facilities for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source-code editor, build automation tools, an ...

for

Classic MacOS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...

, that offered C/C++ and Pascal, targeting both

and

. Java support was added in 1996. CodeWarrior for

was the IDE in the early days of the device, limited to the C compiler with partial C++ support. Constructor for PalmPilot looked familiar to

PowerPlant Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

Constructor users. CodeWarrior was the default toolchain for

. Initially, developers on a BeBox could either use the command line tool provided, or cross-compile using the Macintosh IDE, until Metrowerks developed the BeIDE as part of CodeWarrior for BeOS. Later CodeWarrior was ported to run on Windows for Win32 development (with MFC), and compilers started targeting embedded platforms.

References

{{Nokia Defunct software companies of Canada Defunct companies of Quebec Software companies established in 1985 Software companies disestablished in 2005 1985 establishments in Quebec