From: Mark Kovarski <kovarski@zooid.guild.org>
Subject: The IBM/Apple/Motorola Alliance
Organization: The Zoo of Ids
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 06:25:44 GMT

========================================================================
 Recently, Corporate Software, Inc's Jennifer McNight interviewed Lucy
 Baney, IBM's Personal Systems Director of Software Business 
 Development, on the Apple/IBM alliance and the future of IBM's OS/2.  
 Following are the comments from that interview which was published in 
 Corporate Software's February issue of Update.  Update is a monthly 
 newsletter that is circulated to over 25,000 subscribers from various 
 corporations.
========================================================================

Q: Apple and IBM have promised a number of exciting new ideas and
   technologies.  But are these goals driven by customer requirements?  
   How do you balance the incorporation of new technology with customer
   requirements?

A: Many independent studies, as well as those conducted by IBM and
   Apple, highlight a number of key market requirements and
   opportunities.  Customers are expanding the use of intelligent
   workstations beyond personal productivity to include workgroup
   computing, access to their total computing resource such as midrange
   and mainframe systems, and new advanced mission critical
   applications.

   In addition, the user community expects an intuitive, graphically
   oriented user interface.  They also need applications delivered
   quickly that are flexible enough to meet constantly changing
   business demands, and can be tailored for the way they work.
   Customers also want more open systems that give them the
   flexibility to choose among system vendors, while maintaining
   portability of applications and minimizing the complexity of
   managing a heterogeneous environment.

   Application developers face a tremendous challenge in meeting these
   requirements.  They are looking for breakthrough technology that
   will address the need for portability, and will reduce
   development/enhancement cycle time, cost and complexity.

   We believe that the IBM/Apple/Motorola technology alliance will
   provide benefits to customers, not only today, but also in the
   future.  The products that are derived from our two new joint
   ventures and the PowerOpen/PowerPC work will create fundamentally
   new ways of working and learning.

   For example, Apple and IBM believe that the integration of of
   sound, video, graphics and animation with computers has enormous
   potential in education and business.  Our multimedia joint venture,
   Kaleida, was formed to address this opportunity.  Yet, multimedia
   has not become pervasive, in large part because there is no
   widespread industry agreement on data formats and system specifics
   to support these technologies.  As a result, few developers have
   the economic incentive to develop and market multimedia products.
   It is our intention to provide these specifications and formats
   that can be widely accepted and used in multimedia, encouraging a
   vibrant and innovative industry.

   On another level, as computer systems and users have become more
   sophisticated, a new class of computing problems has emerged.  For
   example, software development has become difficult, costly, and
   inefficient.  In large companies, there is a huge backlog of
   application demand, yet it can take more than a year for an
   in-house development team to create an application that may be
   critical to the business.  Apple and IBM intend to address this
   area with the Taligent joint venture.  Object-oriented software
   technology will make it much easier and quicker for applications to
   be created.  This will result in new, innovative applications for
   customers and exciting new opportunities for developers.

   This relationship is not about one company or three companies but
   about how to grow the industry for both vendors and developers.  It
   aims to provide a series of open platforms upon which any developer
   can build and in turn provide low-cost, high-quality products to
   our customers.  The customer is the ultimate beneficiary.

Q: In the past, the industry has seen a number of unsuccessful 
   strategic alliances between vendors.  Why do you think this 
   agreement with Apple will prove more productive and successful than 
   some past alliances?

A: First of all, you seem to imply that most strategic alliances
   don't work, which isn't the case.  Our work with Intel has gone on
   for ten years and essentially created a $100 billion dollar
   industry.  Our work with Microsoft created the highly successful
   DOS machine.  Other successful alliances are in effect with Lotus,
   Novell, Borland and dozens of other companies in the industry to
   provide new uses at lower prices.  This alliance is focused on four
   essential areas and will produce solid technology foundations that
   we hope will profoundly influence the future of computing.

   To begin, networking products will make it easier for Apple's
   systems to participate as clients in large enterprise networks.
   Products such as the new Apple 16/4MB Token-Ring adapter have
   already been announced, and IBM has licensed Apple's AppleTalk
   protocol stack.

   PowerOpen is an open computing environment comprised of three
   elements:
   A single-chip RISC design based on IBM's RISC POWER architecture.
   It also includes an operating system based on IBM's AIX software
   and its implementation of OSF/1 technology.
   The third area that comprises PowerOpen involves that Macintosh or
   Motif graphics interface on top of AIX.  When you incorporate
   Apple's Macintosh interface and the capability to run OSF's Motif
   applications, you are looking at an open platform with what we
   expect to be the broadest application suite of any UNIX-based
   platform in the industry.  Apple will base its next generation of
   Macintoshes on this hardware and software and IBM will bring out
   products as well.  Both the chips and software will be available
   for other vendors in the industry.

   The third area of influence is the Kaleida multimedia joint venture
   which I just discussed.

   And finally, the Taligent object-oriented software project which I
   also just told you about.

   IBM and Apple share a common vision, and have complementary skills.
   In addition, we've specifically set up independent, jointly-owned
   ventures with Taligent and Kaleida so that they could pursue their
   own business objectives.

Q: Specifically how do you think the alliance between IBM and Apple 
   offers a more compelling scenario for system and application 
   development than that offered by other major vendors - like 
   Microsoft?

A: IBM and Apple are forming this alliance to bring to market new
   foundation technologies that will not only address today's needs
   but be a superior base for building more sophisticated and useful
   future applications.  Object-oriented technology, for example, has
   been under development in both IBM and Apple for quite some time.
   One of the key objectives in forming the Taligent joint venture is
   to bring the benefits of this breakthrough computing environment to
   customers sooner.

   Object-oriented technology is being widely embraced by the
   computing industry because of the substantial increase in developer
   productivity and increase in software reliability, extensibility,
   and maintainability.  Object-oriented technology encourages more
   shared application function, easier functional enhancement, and
   end-user customization.  It is particularly well suited to address
   the new interfaces, distributed applications, multimedia support,
   and rapidly changing business requirements.  Taligent is charged
   with building a complete object environment.  Today's systems are
   layered, meaning they will gradually incorporate object technology
   onto the kernel.  That's what's new, different and compelling
   about it.

Q: What are predictions for the market acceptance of IBM OS/2 2.0 and
   future versions of OS/2 and Windows from Microsoft?  Do you think IBM
   OS/2 2.0 can really edge out Windows from the desktop perspective? If
   so, why?

A: OS/2 2.0 offers a state-of-the-art development and operating
   environment.  More than 25,000 DOS, Windows and OS/2 applications
   are available for it.  But OS/2 goes beyond the desktop
   perspective.  It was developed from a conviction that the inherent
   limitations of DOS would inhibit the evolution of the next
   generation of applications.  These applications will demand
   multiple threads of execution, large storage use, memory
   protection, and support for enterprise and database access.  As
   such, OS/2 is much more than the addition of simple ease-of-use
   features on top of DOS.  It harnesses the power of the complete
   computing environment:  desktop, midrange and mainframe.  That's
   why so many large systems customers and application developers are
   eager to get it.  Windows extends DOS and makes the desktop easier
   to use, but OS/2 harnesses all the capabilities and resources
   --especially data--available to computer users who need easy-to-use
   access beyond the desktop environment.

   Let me try to size the situation for you.  Windows introduced a
   graphical extension to DOS.  However, DOS cannot handle pre-emptive
   multi-tasking system requirements, or run sophisticated mission
   critical business applications in a complex communication
   environment without reliability concerns.  OS/2 can do all this and
   more, while being simple for virtually any user.

   Today we're beta testing with over 20,000 users.  While we will
   officially deliver the fully enhanced shrink wrapped version of
   OS/2 2.0 in March, 1992, we delivered OS/2 2.0 to customers who
   needed it with all the base function we promised by the end of
   1991.  By the way, we incorporated improvements that were requested
   by customers and developers who participated in the most aggressive
   early experience and testing program IBM has ever initiated for any
   of its products.  IBM has a lot of 32-bit experience with MVS, VM,
   OS/400, AIX and OS/2.

Q: When we spoke with Bill Gates, we asked him about the IBM/Apple
   announcement.  He responded, "We honestly don't understand how the 
   new IBM/Apple offering will affect the industry.  It is so confusing.
   At first glance, it seems to obsolete OS/2, yet IBM is pouring all 
   this money into OS/2 today, and is trying to convince major customers
   to invest in it (OS/2) as a long-term strategy.  But either this new 
   thing isn't real, or OS/2 has been replaced as IBM's long-term 
   strategy."  How do you respond to that statement?

A: Since the details of the alliance were announced October 2nd,
   Bill wouldn't have known much about it when you interviewed him for
   the Octber issues.  As I said earlier, the Apple/IBM alliance
   doesn't obsolete OS/2 at all.  In fact, it strengthens the OS/2
   strategy by laying out the roadmap for users through the end of the
   decade.  Remember, Microsoft is just getting started with its
   32-bit strategy.  We'll deliver ours in a full shrink-wrapped
   version in March--and there was limited availability in December.
   The key thing to remember is that the whole strategy we've laid out
   protects users' investments in application software and hardware.
   For example, a DOS or DOS/Windows application runs on OS/2.0.
   Similarly we intend a compatible migration path to Taligent's
   software environment when it's ready.  In addition, new
   object-oriented technology developed by Taligent can be
   incorporated into the OS/2 environment as appropriate.  This will
   make it easier for our customers to move to the new environment
   when they're ready and when it makes good business sense for them.
   So you see, the object environment is a logical extension to OS/2,
   an environment we've been working on for some time.  OS/2 has been
   and continues to be one of IBM's strategic operating systems for
   the nineties.  We have never wavered from that position.

Q: Once the promised object-oriented environment is introduced from the
   joint venture, what happens to OS/2?  What happens to the Macintosh
   System?  Will customers lose the investment they've made in these
   environments?

A: We intend to provide the capability for the Taligent joint
   venture's product to run OS/2 applications.  That will protect
   customer's current investments.  We will continue to enhance the
   OS/2 environment with object technology from Taligent.  Because
   we're providing application compatibility, our customers can choose
   if and when to migrate to the new object environment.  People use
   what gets the job done for them.  I'm sure you'll see millions of
   OS/2-based machines around well into the next century.  The press
   so frequently portrays this as a binary issue and it's not.  People
   are going to use OS/2 for a long time.

Q: IBM is a major player in both the network and OS market.  What 
   impact, if any, do you think Novell's acquisition of Digital Research
   will have on the networking market?  What impact do you think it will
   have on the operating systems market?

A: You really need to ask Novell about this.

========================================================================
 Since Joining IBM in 1973 as a systems analyst, Lucy Baney has held a
 number of positions within the marketing organization.  She is 
 currently the Director of Software Market Development.
========================================================================