There is no reason, at least in theory, why the company couldn't go on to create its own hardware-software platform based on one or more PowerPC CPUs. The sexiest feature of the BeOS is built-in symmetric multiprocessing, with the ability to move threads over more than one processor, depending on system loads. Be says the BeOS supports anything from a uniprocessor on up through a four processor system. By contrast, NeXT is only promising MP performance. Be says that about three-fourths of its engineering effort goes toward software design, the remainder toward designing hardware.
Handles designs for realtime media and communications.
Be says that BeOS is customized for realtime, high bandwidth data types, including audio and video. At Macworld, Be announced that it had begun shipping developers a version of the BeOS designed to run on Power Macintosh-based hardware. This version came in addition to the BeOS DR8 development kitintroduced last December. That kit supports the dual processor BeBox. Differences between the Power Mac and BeBox versions of the OS involve drivers at the hardware abstraction layer, which Be says are transparent to developers.