Apple Announces Alliances With Disney and Japan’s Bandai
Apple Computer Inc. announced two separate alliances Friday that are major endorsements of the troubled company and its Macintosh computer platform.
Japanese toy giant Bandai Co. said in Tokyo that it will start selling Apple’s Pippin multimedia terminal--a stripped-down Macintosh that is both a game player and an Internet access device that plugs into a TV set for a monitor.
Bandai will start selling the Pippin Atmark player in Japan on March 22 and in the United States in May.
Separately, Walt Disney Co. will produce CD-ROMs based on Disney cartoon characters for use on Apple’s Macintosh line under a marketing arrangement, the companies said in Cannes, France, at a conference Friday.
“Someone thinks the patient is healthy and on its way to recovery,” said Pieter Hartsook of the Hartsook Letter in Alameda, an Apple watcher. They “would not have gone through with a deal if they thought the platform was dying.”
Disney will create new interactive CD-ROMs for Apple’s Performa line of home computers.
“We will create some titles exclusively for Apple,” said Dominique Bourse, vice president of Disney Interactive Europe.
The first volume of the collection is due in stores in the spring and will include “Disney’s Animated Story Book: The Lion King and the Aladdin Activity Center” CD-ROMs. Future titles will include “Pocahontas.”
Apple’s deal with Bandai, which marketed the popular Power Ranger line of toys, is the first major licensee of Apple’s nascent Pippin technology, and Hartsook said he expects more to follow in the coming months.
The Pippin Atmark player, made under license from Apple, will run a range of entertainment, educational and business software on ordinary home TV sets.
“This is terrific news,” Hartsook said, adding that Bandai had delayed its shipping of the Pippin Atmark because of its concerns about Apple and whether it would remain independent, after the company’s widely reported merger talks with Sun Microsystems Inc. “It was not a technical problem. It was a political problem.”
Marco Landi, president of Apple Europe, told Reuters in Paris on Thursday that Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple wanted to stay independent but needed to find partners. He cited the tie-up with Bandai as an example.
Apple on Friday also unveiled a linkup with Adobe Systems Inc. that will bundle Adobe’s software on Power Mac computers for multimedia publishing.
Apple shares closed down 12.5 cents at $27.75 on Nasdaq.
