In the aftermath of the Apple-Next combination, no-one has paid much attention to what that means for the other company most suspected to be on Apple’s shopping list, Be Inc. Just so it doesn’t slip our minds for too long, Jean-Louis Gassee’s Menlo- Park based company has made three strategic moves: a demonstration of VirtualMac, which promises to enable Mac OS applications to run alongside BeOS applications; a ‘first look’ at a number of new BeOS applications; and the shipment of the BeOS PowerMac Development Kit.or from Palo Alto-based Lorienne Software, Charlotte Web Server from Purity Software of Austin, and development tool Package Builder from StarCode Software of Menlo Park. Finally Be has confirmed that it began shipment to developers of the BeOS designed to run on PowerMac-based hardware, along with a development kit, on December 23. Be also announced that it will ship the ‘BeOS Preview Release’, the first publicly available release of the BeOS operating system, on or before March 31 1997. Software developed with the kit for any PowerPC version of the BeOS – whether BeBox, PowerMac or future PowerPC designs – is said to be binary compatible. Developers should be able to copy between systems without any change.
