Apple-IBM alliance (redirected from IBM-Apple alliance)

Apple-IBM alliance

In 1991, Apple and IBM agreed to do the following:

1. To develop the PowerPC, a single-chip version of IBM's POWER architecture, with IBM and Motorola.

2. To better integrate Macs into IBM enterprise networks.

3. To develop PowerOpen, a Unix-based operating system that runs AIX and Mac applications on the PowerPC.

4. To form Taligent to develop and license an object-oriented operating system for the PowerPC, Motorola 68xxx and Intel x86 families with compatibility with AIX, OS/2 and System 7.

5. To form Kaleida Labs to develop and license multimedia software, tools and scripting languages for a diverse variety of computers and consumer electronic gear.

The Results
1. The PowerPC was the major outcome of the alliance and has been used in Macs, IBM midrange computers and embedded systems. See PowerPC.

2. A tad more network integration took place. IBM routers could optionally run Apple protocols to connect to Apple networks, and a Macintosh Token Ring adapter was developed.

3. PowerOpen, the common Unix OS, was abandoned. IBM stayed with AIX, and Apple eventually wrote the Unix-based Mac OS X. See PowerOpen.

4. The Taligent OS never came about. Taligent did deliver its CommonPoint application frameworks and development tools and eventually became part of IBM.

5. Kaleida introduced its ScriptX multimedia technology in 1995. It moved into Apple's Multimedia Group when Kaleida closed its doors later in the year.