REALbasic was created by Andrew Barry. It was originally called CrossBasic due to its ability to compile the same programming code for Mac OS and Java. In 1997 CrossBasic was purchased by PYI Software which renamed it REALbasic as well as renaming the company REAL software. At this time they dropped the Jave target, later replacing it with a Windows target and database support. The IDE is now available for Microsoft and can compile applications for Windows, Mac OS X.