Power PCs: Return of the Mac

The Power PC has proved to be something of a late developer. But its backers still have faith in its future. Geof Wheelwright reports

The ill-starred Power PC effort, bravely launched by Apple, Motorola and IBM half a decade ago, is having a rough ride as it hits the age that most children start going to school.

Backers of the Power PC have been learning from the school of hard knocks lately, as they have watched the most high-profile Power PC user ? Apple?s Macintosh division ? stumble from one rescue plan to the next, culminating in the much-ballyhooed deal that saw Steve Jobs return to the company in December last year.

To get a further measure of the problems facing Power PC, combine the fact of Apple?s woes with the news in early December that Motorola and IBM were abandoning their efforts to develop Microsoft Windows NT as a mainstream operating system alternative for Power PC systems beyond the current release of NT 4.

This will leave most users with the option of buying Power PC systems with various versions of the Macintosh OS (four of which are supposed to be in active use over the next 18 months) and certain flavours of Unix (including IBM?s AIX). It is clear from announcements by Motorola and IBM?s Power PC development divisions that the companies realise much of their future lies with the Mac versions of the Power PC ? although a lot of energy is going into the production of Power PC reference platforms that will be capable of running multiple operating systems at high levels of performance.

One of the most high profile of these has been Motorola?s Yellowknife Power PC platform reference design ? launched with great fanfare at Comdex Fall last year ? which aims to be compliant with the Power PC platform specifications and capable of booting Mac OS, Windows NT and other operating systems (including AIX). Motorola says it is supposed to help manufacturers, Vars and Vads develop quick-to-market, volume Power PC systems.

?The successful use of low-cost, high-performance Power PC microprocessors and industry-standard peripherals to run the Mac OS and Windows NT is added proof that the Power PC platform is a compelling solution for rising PC ownership costs,? said Phil Pompa, director of marketing at Motorola?s Risc microprocessor division, when Yellowknife was announced.

Manufacturers wanting to produce systems based on the design have been quick out of the starting gate. Mac cloner Umax, for example, said it intended to use the Yellowknife reference design to build the company?s first Power PC Platform systems.

?Yellowknife is the ideal reference design upon which to build Power PC Platform systems,? says Andy Chang, senior vice president of worldwide sales for Umax. ?The performance capabilities of Yellowknife give Umax the room it needs to design low-cost, multi-operating system computers that combine robust features with the natural advantages of the Power PC microprocessor.?

All of this is music to the ears of Jeff Nutt, program manager for Power PC reference platforms at Motorola. He says response from manufacturers, Vars and Vads has been huge since the Comdex announcement. ?There has been lots of interest from Vars who currently only handle one platform or the other,? he explains. ?They see it as a chance to offer differentiation ? to offer Mac-compatible and Wintel solutions.?

Nutt admits, however, that not much will happen with Yellowknife (at least in terms of finished product) until Motorola gets the common hardware reference platform (CHRP) version of the Mac OS ? even though about 75 per cent of those enquiring so far want to buy motherboards.

While these systems can also run NT and AIX, Nutt says Power PC developers don?t need Yellowknife to develop a Windows NT solution ? they only need it if they want a system that can run NT (for as long as Motorola continues to support the current version of NT on Power PC) and the Mac OS interchangeably.

He also says that neither Mac software developers nor Power PC Windows NT developers will have to rewrite their code to run on Yellowknife systems.

Nutt expects the latest hardware technologies ? such as the universal serial bus (USB) and Firewire technology ? to be used by developers creating systems using Yellowknife, although neither will be required as part of the minimum mandatory hardware specification in the initial implementation of the reference design.

This discussion followed the announcement in October by IBM and Motorola of enhanced versions of the Power PC 603e microprocessor, including a 240MHz version, which has since been overshadowed by more recent 300MHz Power PC announcements.

The real question is whether all this effort is simply too little, too late. Whatever the attractions of providing the chips to drive high-performance Mac workstations, as well as a number of single-purpose devices, the volumes of this business pale in comparison with what Intel has been able to achieve with its Pentium-class processors and beyond.

Never forget that the original stated intention of the Power PC consortium was to provide an alternative to the Intel chip monopoly. The idea was that with chips capable of running the Mac OS, IBM?s OS/2, Unix and Windows NT, there would be a compelling reason for system builders to look at Power PC as an alternative.

While Apple has put the most energy into making Power PC its mainstream platform, IBM?s efforts to have OS/2 on the Power PC were slow to start and underwhelming at best. Meanwhile, Windows NT implementations on Power PC have suffered from the lack of native 32bit NT applications converted to run on Power PC ? effectively destroying any chances of NT-based Power PC systems being considered as high-volume Intel alternatives.

The major problem facing the Power PC players now is a growing perception that they have missed the boat. On current form, Power PC will never be anything more than a niche player in the PC processor world, and recent developments at Apple may soon see its dominance in the Macintosh market slip away.

The problem lies with the Next operating system, which is being blended with Apple?s existing Power PC Macintosh operating system in a planned upcoming OS release called Rhapsody. This plan is still in its infancy, however, and is one of many initiatives announced in the wake of the Steve Jobs deal with Apple.

It is hard not to consider the fact that Next did not have a version of its operating system capable of running on the Power PC and that some Rhapsody developers may initially start working with Next software on Intel PCs before it ever gets to the Mac.

If Apple runs into a lot of problems in porting Rhapsody to Power PC (which would certainly be the Apple way, given all the trouble in other recent attempts to get new and improved operating systems to market), is it likely that developers could be pointed to the current Intel version of Next as a way to get working with the code. There have even been suggestions that Apple might have to migrate its hardware base to Intel if Next on Power PC proved highly problematic.

Apple?s official line on all this is as follows (even if you have heard some of it before, it is worth reading to try to put it in the context of the future of Power PC). Apple says that Rhapsody will be based on the merging of technologies from Apple and Next and that it aims to ?provide strong backward compatibility for Mac OS software offering current customers a smooth migration path? to the new OS.

Through this approach, Apple expects to provide customers and developers with a platform for ?exceptional and cutting-edge applications?, while enhancing their investment in the Mac OS.

Apple also claims that what it calls ?the advanced technical underpinnings and rapid development environment? of Rhapsody will allow developers to create new applications that leapfrog those of other modern operating systems, such as Windows NT.

The first release of Rhapsody is promised by Apple as a launch to developers in mid to late 1997, and to customers within 12 months. Apple says Rhapsody is planned to incorporate features such as pre-emptive multitasking and protected memory, as well as a modern kernel.

It is also expected to include a new application programming interface (API) based on Next Software?s Open Step environment. In parallel, Apple promised that the Mac OS will continue to evolve with the release of a significant upgrade, Mac OS 7.6.

If the whole idea seems a little odd, the company suggests that it is, in many ways, no different from Microsoft?s two-track strategy for Windows NT. While it was enhancing Dos and Windows throughout the first half of the 1990s, the software giant was also developing and then updating new releases of Windows NT ? to the point where, today, Windows 95 and Windows NT are on a path to eventually merge. Apple wants its strategy to be seen in the same way.

Apple claims that this will allow both Mac OS and Rhapsody to share a similar look and feel and provide compatibility with existing Mac OS applications and hardware ? supposedly giving customers and software developers a smooth upgrade path to Next generation technology. The company further pledges that existing Mac OS software should work within Rhapsody at Power PC speeds.

In addition, Apple says it plans that Rhapsody should support today?s currently shipping Mac OS computers, as well as future Mac OS hardware.

The important issue for the Power PC group is Apple?s pledge that both the new versions of Mac OS and Rhapsody will be optimised for Power PC hardware. Rhapsody is expected to support all currently shipping Power PC-based systems sold by Apple and Apple licensees today.

Rhapsody is also expected to support all upcoming products, including the Power PC platform (all the CHRP products). The company intends to continue to develop, sell and support Next software products for other platforms, including the Pentium, Sparc, and Windows NT.

The likely future for Power PC is that it will continue to be a key part of Apple?s medium-term plans for the Macintosh platform, but there are indications that this may not be the case in the longer term.

Given that Apple chief technology officer Ellen Hancock has made clear her intention to turn the company into much more of a software organisation (shades of Next), it is not unreasonable to think that it would look to broaden support for more hardware platforms, especially as Next already brings that expertise to Apple.

For this reason and others, we can expect to see the Power PC processor increasingly being offered as a computing engine to drive peripherals, special purpose devices (such as network computer-style internet access terminals) and even handheld computers.

Don?t forget that all the key Power PC signatories were also high-profile backers of the network computer concept and that Apple and IBM have developed products (the IBM network computer and the Apple-developed Pippin) that broadly execute the NC idea.