FWB: Nothing Real About RealPC for Mac

The new management of a company that had claimed to be working on a PC emulation product called RealPC for the Mac OS X admitted on Wednesday that no formal development had ever begun on the product.

FWB Software Inc., before a management shakeup in July, had indicated during media interviews and on the companys Web site that the RealPC product was in beta and about to be released, according to a statement from the new management.

FWB Software, of Redwood Shores, Calif., now plans to discontinue any plans to develop the product, citing development costs and licensing fees. RealPC was expected to be a competitor to Virtual PC, another PC emulation product now owned by Microsoft Corp.

“I am sorry to have to admit that apparently the company has been a party to vaporware when it comes to the claims regarding RealPC,” Marko Kostyrko, FWBs new CEO, who took over in July, said in a statement.

In investigating RealPCs status, Kostyrko said FWBs new management found that “not a single line of code has been written” and that the company had not received the source code needed as the foundation for building the emulation software.

Kostyrko promised that the new management, which also includes President Mark Hurlow, is committed to restoring trust in the company. FWB Software develops a range of disk utility software for the Mac.

“Honesty and openness with the user base is a cornerstone of the new management team,” the companys statement said.