IBM'S OS/2 FOR THE POWERPC ENTERS BETA CYCLE
Beta 1 released to developers this week

AUSTIN, TX., Dec. 15, 1994 ... IBM today announced that it will begin to
distribute its beta for the OS/2 for the PowerPC operating system and
software developer kit to 150 select software vendors and corporate
developers, marking the start of its OS/2 for the PowerPC beta program.

The first beta of OS/2 for the PowerPC includes features of OS/2 Warp plus
a complete application development environment. This confidential beta is
designed to give developers a head start on porting their existing 32-bit
Intel applications to the PowerPC and allow them to begin to develop new
applications that exploit the benefits native to the RISC architecture.

"This platform's success depends on building a critical mass of exciting
applications that run on it. At COMDEX, we demonstrated how easy it is to
port existing 32-bit applications," said John Schwarz, vice president,
development, IBM Personal Systems. "With this program, we intend to show
how easy it is to build applications from the ground up that exploit the
combined power of the RISC hardware and software."

Several ISVs have successfully ported their applications to OS/2 for the
PowerPC as demonstrated at COMDEX/Fall'94. Developers who use the 32-bit
API set can easily port their source code -- often in less than one week
-- from one hardware platform to another with only a recompile.

"We have spent time doing the Mesa port and everything IBM says about OS/2
for the PowerPC being a simple recompile is true, " said David Pollak,
president, Athena Design. "If you develop for OS/2 Warp today, your
investment will be protected when it's time to move on to the PowerPC."

"We were able to port to a whole new platform within two days," said Chris
Shablak, senior vice president, future development, BocaSoft. "I am
extremely excited about OS/2 for the PowerPC. With little or no effort --
we have been able to open up a brand new market for the future."

"Pinnacle Technology is proud to be involved in the early releases of OS/2
for the PowerPC," said Charles Dircks, president, Pinnacle Technology. "We
believe IBM is truly living up to the OS/2 API commitment. Conversion from
Intel was fast, easy and best of all, very inexpensive."

With OS/2 for the PowerPC, developers use a single source code for Intel
and RISC, allowing them to efficiently maintain, update, market and
support both versions of their applications.

This is especially beneficial to ISVs who want to support multiple
platforms but have been hindered by the complexity and cost.

OS/2 for the PowerPC, which is scheduled to be commercially available from
IBM next year, combines the award-winning features of OS/2 with the
leading-edge performance of PowerPC hardware.

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