In a tacit acknowledgement that development of bus master upgrade boards for the Micro Channel models of the PS/2 is not coming along as fast as IBM would like or expected, the company is bankrolling Aox Inc, of Waltham, Massachusetts by taking an equity stake in the bus master board specialist. Aox will work with IBM to advance Micro Channel product development but terms of the investment by IBM were not disclosed.Aox currently offers the MicroMaster 386 and 486 bus master system upgrade accelerator boards, which plug into the full range of Micro Channel PS/2s: they upgrade the system to 80386 or 80486 level and direct the native 80286 or 80386 processor to low-level tasks for more efficient computing. IBM also ordered a substantial quantity of Aox upgrade boards for internal use. Coupled with IBM’s investment in a string of companies that have committed to offering products for use with its AD/Cycle schema, the move is a sign of the times in that in the past, IBM could count on the rest of the software and peripherals add-on industry to rush to support its products without the need to sweeten them with cash.
