IBM Corp has won 88000 RISC afficionado Harris Corp for the PowerPC RISC IBM is developing with Motorola Inc and Apple Computer Inc as part of an alliance aimed at the US Federal market. The agreement covers co-operative marketing of the Harris Night Hawk line of real-time Unix computers with teh IBM RS/6000 to US government customers and involves Harris in helping IBM implement real-time capability for the RS/6000. Harris will incorporate the PowerPC into the Night Hawk line. IBM Federal Systems says that Night Hawk will enable it to offer customers an extremely capable real-time computing system with the B-1 level security many of them require. Harris sees the Night Hawk being combined with the RS/6000 to create a cost-effective secure client-server system. Harris does appear to be ditching the Motorola 88000 RISC entirely in favour of the PowerPC: it sees the pact as a natural extension of our alliance with Motorola… PowerPC will offer a natural transition for our customers, a continuation of our Preplanned Product Improvement strategy.
