Is Apple Computer Inc back-tracking on its commitment to make a shrinkwrapped Mac OS freely available in stores for machines built to the new PowerPC standard? The company’s Jim Gable now says that the Mac ROM is not part of the standard, which is limited to mandating a slot for the ROM: he suggests that manufacturers worried about the cost of the ROM can just leave the slot empty, and insists that if people buy empty slot machines, they will be able to get the ROM and Apple won’t create any difficulty over this – but will they be part of the price of shrinkwrapped Mac OS, come in the same box, be in the stores alongside Mac OS but separately priced – or will you have to get them directly from Apple at perhaps another $500? It doesn’t seem to change the basic story, and our suspicion is that the genie is now out of the bottle and that there will soon be such a head of steam for the concept of a freely-available shrink-wrapped Mac OS that Apple will not be able to make an issue of the Mac ROM.
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