IBM Corp has always said it would ship its Power Personal machines – or whatever they will be called – in the second half of this year. And here we are in the second half. Andy Jawlik, IBM’s manager of marketing communications at Power Personal Systems, bit the bullet in a CompuServe forum last week […]
IBM Corp has always said it would ship its Power Personal machines – or whatever they will be called – in the second half of this year. And here we are in the second half. Andy Jawlik, IBM’s manager of marketing communications at Power Personal Systems, bit the bullet in a CompuServe forum last week and said what some had suspected for some time – namely that for general availability we’re really looking to the fourth quarter. This is not a schedule slip, but it is disappointing. There is a feeling that the PowerPC fraternity is twiddling its thumbs, waiting for the action to begin – or, more specifically, for the operating systems to ship. At our sister publication PowerPC News, reading the runes to try to decide when the machines will appear is becoming a sport rather akin to the old-time Kremlin watchers trying to determine political status from the position of apparatchiks on the balcony. The smart money has been on Comdex in November for the formal announcement. Jawlik points out, however, that Comdex is not a terribly good place to make a splash, because announcements tend to be submerged in the general hub-bub. Whether or not that is a double-bluff, we will let you decide. Meanwhile there has been a lot of press speculation about whether IBM will actually manage to get OS/2 for the PowerPC shipping before the end of the year. The official line from IBM is: Yes, we will be delivering before the end of the year and a beta will be going out this summer. The other set of speculation has concerned a cut-down version of OS/2 – the implication being the Personal Software Products Division will be forced to cut corners to rush something out for the end of the year. This was denied by a spokesman. However, he declined to comment on what would be included or excluded from the initial beta version.
