According to US reports, IBM Corp and Apple Computer Inc have decided to continue funding Kaleida Labs Inc and Taligent Inc despite their recent management changes and financial re-evaluations. However, sources familiar with IBM’s inner workings reportedly indicated that senior vice-president for strategy and development James Cannavino had to intervene to ensure such financing continued, after chief executive Louis Gerstner apparently questioned whether either of the companies was really astrategic investment. And it seems that the huge review of hundreds of IBM’s joint ventures could result in it trimming its funding to as few as 24 external companies and projects. The re-evaluation process at Apple was said to be less formal, but was also driven by a desire to restructure the company. Nonetheless, neither Taligent or Kaleida is expected to ship products in any large quantities until 1995 – although Taligent does plan to supply IBM and Apple with portions of its operating system next year, and Kaleida has already delivered an alpha version of its ScriptX operating system to its onlie begetters. It also plans to use Malibu, a multi-layer graphics and memory controller chip, which it designed and Motorola Inc is manufacturing, in Scientific-Atlanta Inc’s television set-top terminal – this is designed to deliver interactive and multimedia services to the home via broadband cable television networks. Malibu is optimised to work with PowerPC-based hardware, and can be used to display high-resolution text and enhanced two-dimensional and three-dimensional animation and graphics. But the three companies are also to work together in developing interface software for networks and media servers running ScriptX.
