The daunting prospect of a merged IBM Corp-Apple Computer Inc company seemed to come a good deal closer on Friday when the New York Times reported that the negotiations for a collaboration on a new workstation that would use IBM’s RS/6000 RISC and run the portable operating system code-named Pink that Apple is developing have made progress. According to the Times, the two companies are discussing 50-50 shared ownership of the new operating system, which could cost $100m or more to develop; the resulting machines, described as successors to the Macintosh, would be marketed by both Apple and IBM. It is also suggested that IBM might licence Motorola Inc to make the RS/6000 RISC for Apple as a consolation prize for the company not using Motorola’s 88000 RISC. The paper suggests that Apple wants significant cash from IBM to help with the development but points out that IBM may well want royalties for use of its chips and patents, which could cancel out the benefit of the cash for development of the operating system. Taking the story to its logical conclusion, if the new machines really are to replace the Macintosh rather than simply be offered in parallel, once they are out there will be nothing left of Apple that IBM does not have a part of, so there would be little point in Apple remaining independent – and the story has a strong feel of one that has been planted to soften up Apple employees and customers to the idea of being acquired by IBM. The Times also confirms what we revealed way back in January, that these talks have been going on for a long time. After the first flush of excitement and flurry of sales, all the evidence is that the RS/6000 is no longer meeting its targets, and the developments with Apple also suggest that IBM may be having second thoughts about having appeared to embrace Unix quite so enthusiastically.
