After its seeming fall-out with Apple Computer Co, Sony Corp has announced that it and Microsoft Corp will co-develop interactive set-top boxes, a sign of a burgeoning alliance between the two companies. The companies plan to have the boxes hit the market in mid-1999 using the Windows CE OS. They intend to supply the boxes to cable companies such as Tele Communications International Inc . Sony is already one of the multiple manufacturers of Microsoft’s WebTV Networks Inc boxes. Kunitake Ando, Sony Vice President says that the company has not decided if other consumer electronics devices like its forthcoming Personal Digital Assistant and next generation games console will also use Windows CE. In a move that could signal a lead, Sega Corp has already licensed CE for its new games console (CI No 3,416) and if Sony went down the same path, using Microsoft’s DirectX APIs, it would significantly reduce the porting times between the both two companies’ consoles, and PC-based games and applications.
