[5]: 1 Originally demonstrated by SunSelect, a division of Sun Microsystems, at the 1992 Fall Comdex show, the product was described as leveraging the Windows API to be able to "separate the software from the hardware", allowing RISC workstation vendors such as Sun to provide greater performance running Windows applications than such applications exhibited on conventional Intel-based personal computers.

Offering "significantly enhanced stability and reliability" over the previous version, Hewlett-Packard and IBM were also to provide the updated software on their own systems.

Wabi 2.0 was promised as a further upgrade in the summer of 1994, supporting a larger number of certified applications than the 13 titles of the original release.

[11] Sun improved the product further and released Wabi 2.1 in 1995, introducing multimedia capabilities such as the handling of audio and video, as well as ODBC support in Windows applications.

[20] In its initial form, Wabi was intended to be able to run certified applications, these having been tested to establish correct operation, without any need for any Windows software.

This approach, as opposed to a full replacement, was thought by the engineering team to be the only rational methodology for success given both the size of Microsoft's ever-expanding efforts and the difficulties of the emulation being precise enough to run commercial software.

[7] Meanwhile, an impression had been established that undocumented Windows calls were being exploited by application developers, Microsoft in particular, to gain a form of competitive advantage.

[31] Sun had reportedly but unsuccessfully sought some form of licensing arrangement with Microsoft for access to Windows technologies in early 1993.

[33] In response to the threat of this initiative and Wabi, Microsoft "launched a preemptive strike" by licensing Windows source code to Insignia Solutions, leading to the release of its SoftWindows product.

[22] This was part of a broader licensing effort seeking to appeal to selected companies looking to run Windows solutions on Unix systems.

[30] Despite Sun's contention that there was no intellectual property breach, the Public Windows Interface effort was obstructed by Microsoft lobbying directed towards various standards bodies, effectively curtailing this standardisation attempt.