In what sounds like a plan to put much more of its system software into firmware – as the AS/400 operating system and database already are, IBM is planning to design new versions of its computers right across its line that will run existing software more efficiently, IBM president Jack Kuehler told Reuters: saying that the new concepts will be applied right across IBM’s line, from personal computers to high-end mainframes, he suggested that the approach would further relieve the applications backlog by enabling users to get more out of their existing computers, promised improved price-performance right across the product spectrum, and denied that mid-range machines would be squeezed out by increasingly powerful personal computers and workstations; the interview was given before Kuehler addressed the World Management Congress in New York, where he forecast that supercomputers would be 100 times more powerful in the mid-1990s, and that the number of personal computers in use would double from the present 90m; by the next century, personal computers would be the size of a magazine and business telephones would routinely be videophones; he also quoted analysts that say use of expert systems would grow by 50% a year during the 1990s.
