It looks as if there will be a whole string of companies claiming to be the first licensee for Apple Computer Inc’s Mac OS, and arguably the title has already gone to Bandai Co Ltd for its forthcoming games machine, which will run a stripped down Mac OS on the PowerPC, but the latest contender is Power Computing Corp of Milpitas, California. Power Computing is the company backed by Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA which introduced PowerPC-based personal computers for the OEM market at Comdex in November (CI No 2,550). Power Computing says it has a Mac OS licensing agreement and plans to market its own branded systems as well as offering Mac OS boards and machines on the OEM market. It plans to launch in the spring, way ahead of the earliest date Apple had suggested would be possible – the New York Times reckons it will be shipping mail order Power Macintosh clones for as little as $1,000 in March or April – and says that several potential OEM customers have agreements pending and expect to ship products by mid-year. Stephen Kahng, president and chief executive of Power Computing, was senior vice-president and general manager at Chips & Technologies Inc, leading the company’s approach to commodity-based processor design, and has latterly been working as a consultant to several global personal computer vendors. Olivetti is the company’s largest shareholder: Olivetti executive Enzo Torresi is its chairman, and Olivetti vice-chairman Elserino Piol is on the board. Power Computing, which will not be allowed to use the Macintosh name, plans to use many off-the-shelf parts from the iAPX-86-based personal computer market rather than the proprietary parts Apple uses, and, with only 20 employees, plans to use contract manufacturers to assemble the machine s. It hopes to sell more than 100,000 in the first year.
