They also plan on marketing their own POP chipset to OEMs and boardmakers. Firewire, and PCI audio are also planned. No information on shipping dates or expected pricing was available from the Prophet website. Total Impact, on the other hand, is applying its experience in multi-processing solutions to the POP standard, with its announced intention to merge its TotalMP technology with the IBM designed POP motherboard. The system is targeted as a Linux system, with the base system including 5 PowerPC processors.
Pricing is yet to be determined.
It definitely means the market for PowerPC computers will face a serious shake-up. Currently, Apple stands as the sole producer of PowerPC personal computers. If and when independently designed POP computers begin entering the market, Apple could possibly find itself in a situation hauntingly similar to the Cloning Fiasco. They may, though, make inroads into a realm of servers and business where Apple has traditionally been weak. Even though Apple has expressed no intention to dedicate its own resources to porting Darwin to other platforms, it is eminently possible that Darwin Open Source enthusiasts will.