Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and IBM Corp have now reached the point where they are prepared to discuss their mooted alliance on applying the PowerPC RISC to multimedia products. They are discussing both development and manufacturing and will do joint feasibility studies on developing new consumer electronic products, including Personal Digital Assistants, new games machines using the 3DO Co standard that Matsushita is backing and products using Matsushita’s technology for rewritable optical disks. IBM will provide technical support to help incorporate its PowerPC microprocessor into the products that could be developed jointly. Matsushita said it had not yet decided whether to use the PowerPC in notebook computers, workstations and other personal computers. IBM has already rallied three other Japanese companies, Canon Inc, Toshiba Corp and Hitachi Ltd to the PowerPC RISC cause.
