Alliances with Sony likely to increase as Apple aims to pioneer consumer technologies, we wrote at the end of last month (CI No 1,769), and now the New York Times has firmed up the story and moved it on, saying that Apple and Sony are negotiating alliances approaching in scope the ones between Apple and IBM Corp. The interest of the two companies is in incorporating Apple’s basic user interface software with Sony’s next generation of consumer electronics products in the hope of finally coming out with products like a video cassette recorder that grown-ups are able to program. In the interim, as part of an earlier alliance, Apple will be introducing its new generation of portable Macintoshes later this month, including a notebook model co-designed by Sony and manufactured by the Japanese company. The companies hope to have completed negotiations on their broad-brush consumer alliance by the year end.
