IBM Corp and Apple Computer Inc may announce first details of their impending collaboration as soon as tomorrow – and one element of the outline agreement (nothing is signed yet) may well be that Apple agrees to combine its Pink operating system development with the work being done at IBM’s Patriot Partners Inc joint venture with Metaphor Computer Systems Inc. Object-oriented technology is at the core of the proposed collaboration, and one aim is said to be to create a programming interface and operating system overlay that will enable the same applications to run under different operating systems and perhaps on incompatible hardware. On the hardware side, IBM would license Motorola Inc to fabricate the Rios chip – provided Apple finally settles on the IBM RISC in favour of the alternatives for its future workstations, and IBM might invite other companies to use the RISC too – but presumably on a case-by-case basis where they can bring something to the party, as Hewlett-Packard Co is doing with its Precision Architecture RISC. Motorola is already riding on IBM’s coat-tails on the application of X-ray lithography. The emerging relationship with Apple threatens to make the rift with Microsoft Corp complete: OS/2 becomes an IBM proprietary operating system – as we have repeatedly said it is de facto already, and the Apple-IBM alliance is lined up against the Advanced Computing Initiative, leaving Compaq Computer Corp – and Digital Equipment Corp plunging down an uncharted path with Microsoft in the opposite direction to IBM-Apple. IBM’s deal with Lotus Development Corp on cc:Mail announced on Monday (CI No 1,701) eliminates another Microsoft product from the IBM line.
