IBM, Apple and Motorola Unveil Standard for PCs

IBM and Apple, with an assist from Motorola, set aside their legendary differences long enough Monday to formally unveil a new common personal computer standard for the PowerPC micro processor they began developing three years ago.

But machines based on the joint specifications and designed to run a variety of operating systems won’t appear until 1996. In the meantime, computer industry watchers say, the IBM-Apple alliance could stumble over technical and political hurdles.

Many wonder whether the machines will come to market soon enough to make more than a dent in the awesome power of industry giants Intel and Microsoft, whose chips and operating systems, respectively, appear in 85% of the world’s PCs.

“This is another step along the road (IBM and Apple) have been traveling for three years,” said Richard Shaffer, a principal in the New York consulting firm Technologic Partners. Of the prospects for success, he said, “there’s still considerable doubt.”

Already, however, some prominent companies, including Toshiba and Canon, have lined up to make the new PC. Canon, for example, funded FirePower Systems, based in Menlo Park, Calif., strictly to make PowerPC systems. Software giant Novell, the leader in PC networking software, said it will prepare its products for the machine.

Even so, developing a compatible design that will allow an array of software programs to run seamlessly could prove technically tricky. Moreover, the former archrivals can’t seem to come to terms on a plan for IBM to license Apple’s user-friendly operating system, Mac OS, for use on its machines. Analysts view such a licensing agreement as pivotal to enlisting software developers to write programs for the system.

A licensing pact, analysts said, would have added heft to the notion of a common hardware platform. But at a briefing in New York, executives of IBM, Apple and Motorola declined to discuss licensing.

Nobuo Mii, president of IBM’s Power Personal Systems division, inadvertently shed some light on the issue, saying IBM would ship a machine with the Mac OS in 1996. That would imply that some sort of pact is imminent, but, according to industry scuttlebutt, the two companies are quibbling, as usual, over details.

Bruce Lupatkin, an analyst with Hambrecht & Quist in San Francisco, noted that there is undoubtedly a camp inside IBM that despairs of forcing OS/2, an IBM operating system that has proved a costly failure, to take a back seat to Mac OS.

In the meantime, IBM is sending confusing messages by throwing in its lot with Apple in an effort to develop a new industry standard while emphasizing that it will also continue to make Intel-based machines.

“The strategy is schizophrenic,” Lupatkin said.

If they can pull off their merged technology, however, the companies could conceivably make big gains against Intel and Microsoft--especially among corporate computer buyers who have long shunned Apple.

“To the degree these companies can indeed deliver one box capable of running several operating systems--the Holy Grail of corporate computer buyers--they’ll pick up oodles of market share,” Lupatkin said.

Much as they like the idea, though, corporate buyers seem content to wait and see.

“I think the announcement is a very appealing announcement,” said Hugo Quackenbush, a spokesman for Charles Schwab & Co., the San Francisco brokerage. But “there are a lot of promises an1679843616 Home PC buyers, meanwhile, will probably bide their time as well. It is unclear, for example, just how efficiently the new machines will ultimately run software written for Microsoft’s Wind1870099232 Consultant Shaffer likens IBM-Apple’s struggle to chemotherapy. “It’s painful, it might not work, and there are potentially unpleasant side effects,” he said. “But the alternative is cer1952541038