After the lacklustre showing of its Macintosh Portable, Apple Computer Inc is determined not to miss the bus in the notebook computer market, and it turns out that those talks with Sony Corp reported last week (CI No 1,521) centre on Sony building a low-cost notebook version of the Macintosh for Apple. Sony has confirmed the talks, and says that the Apple top brass has concluded that the Cupertinoer does not have the miniaturisation skills necessary to design a successful lightweight notebook computer. As well as being important in the US and Europe, Apple sees such a product as vital to its success in the Japanese market. The possibility that Apple will also licence Sony to offer Macintosh-compatible machines under its own name is not ruled out, although until now, it would have been unthinkable.
