Licensing of Windows NT is back on the agenda at Apple Computer Inc according to the New York Times – but the options are significantly more limited now than they were a couple of months ago when Apple turned its back on running NT on its high-end servers. Since then, Windows NT for PowerPC has gone to the great memory dump in the sky, and if Apple wants to offer NT, it is pretty much stuck with the iAPX-86 version, and indeed, the Times quoted company executives saying that Apple was considering offering machines that use Intel Corp’s microprocessors rather than the PowerPC. Chief executive Gilbert Amelio has ruled out Apple offering the Pentium Pro version of the OpenStep portable version of the NeXTstep operating system it just acquired in the immediate future. But he told the Times that within two or three years I would like to have the most compatible personal computer in the industry, able to run more software than anyone – period. We’re not in a world by ourselves. We have to be able to support the commodity technology standard, he said.
