Although IBM Corp’s Powerdesks or whatever they are called will be based on PowerPC chips, they will use components common to Pentium machines, including the Peripheral Component Interconnect local bus, SCSI, PCMCIA slots, AT slots, and standard single in-line memory modules, IBM says: to differentiate its machines from Pentium boxes, IBM plans to include speech-recognition capabilities and other multimedia features, and the floating-point unit will be used to create an interface that interacts with users – an on-screen face that smiles, blinks, nods, and responds to spoken commands, PC Week reports; they are to cost approximately $500 to $700 less than comparable Pentium machines because PowerPC chips are less than half the price of Pentium chips – but does the comparable Pentium machine include things like speech recognition and a CD-ROM drive – unless the add-on goodies are thrown in for nothing and the thing still costs much less than a Pentium box, it won’t find much market.
