   Logos of Apple, IBM, and Motorola around AIM's formation | |
| Company type | Joint venture |
|---|---|
| Industry | Information technology |
| Founded | October 2, 1991; 34 years ago (1991-10-02) |
| Defunct | c. 2006 |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Headquarters | United States |
| Owner | Apple Inc.,IBM,Motorola |
| POWER,PowerPC, andPower ISA architectures |
|---|
| NXP (formerly Freescale and Motorola) |
| IBM |
|
| IBM/Nintendo |
| Other |
| Related links |
| Cancelled in gray,historic in italic |
TheAIM alliance was a landmark partnership from 1991 to the late 1990s betweenApple,IBM, andMotorola. The goal was to create a vast new computing platform of hardware, operating systems, and applications that challenged the market dominance of theWintel platform ofMicrosoft Windows onIntel processors. AIM's new hardware was based on IBM'sPOWER architecture, a second-generationRISC architecture forenterprise computing. The large-scale POWER was reduced at Apple's direction into the single-chipPowerPC architecture suitable for mass market personal computers.
AIM had three main initiatives. The first, nicknamedPowerPC alliance, was the creation of the PowerPC family of microprocessors. The second was the formation of two independent joint-venture companies:Taligent Inc., which was tasked with bringing Apple's robust Pink prototype to market as a next-generationobject-oriented operating system; andKaleida Labs, which developed a cross-platformmultimediascripting language. The third initiative was the creation of an open standard for PowerPC-based hardware, first as thePowerPC Reference Platform (PReP) and later as theCommon Hardware Reference Platform (CHRP), which allowed many manufacturers to build open-standard computers running an industry-wide variety of operating systems.
Taligent and Kaleida Labs became commercial failures after several years, reabsorbed by their parent companies. The open hardware standards failed to gain permanent traction, in part because Apple CEOSteve Jobs canceled theMac OS licensing program program for third-party CHRP hardware in 1998. AIM effectively dissolved by the late 1990s. However, the PowerPC architecture was a significant success, poweringMacintosh computers from 1994 untilApple's transition to Intel processors in 2006. PowerPC was prolifically adopted by many vendors in markets such asembedded systems,supercomputing, andvideo game consoles, and gained a lasting legacy.
From the 1980s into the 1990s, the computer industry was moving from a model of just individual personal computers toward an interconnected world, where no single company could afford to be vertically isolated anymore.[1]: 428–429 One analyst explained, "If you try to do everything, you can't have economies of scale."[2]Apple,IBM, andMotorola were important technology companies, butIntel processors powered 85% of personal computers, andMicrosoft dominated the market foroperating systems. Motorola wanted to erode Intel's lead in the processor market, and Apple and IBM foresaw relegation to packaging Microsoft and Intel technology.[3]Infinite Loop says "most people at Apple knew the company would have to enter into ventures with some of its erstwhile enemies, license its technology, or get bought".[1]: 428–429 Microsoft's monopoly and theWintel duopoly threatened competition industrywide, and their competingAdvanced Computing Environment (ACE) consortium was recently formed to promotex86 andMIPS architectures.[2]
In the late 1980s, Apple usedMotorola 68000 series CPUs for its computers. Intel'sAndy Grove tried to persuade Apple to transition tox86, but CEOJohn Sculley and others believed thatCISCmicroprocessors such as x86 would not be competitive withRISC.[4]Phil Hester, a designer of the IBMRS/6000, convinced IBM's presidentJack Kuehler of the necessity of abusiness alliance.[3] Kuehler called Apple PresidentMichael Spindler, who bought into the approach for a design that could challenge the Wintel PC model. Sculley was even more enthusiastic.[5]
On July 3, 1991, Apple and IBM signed a non-contractualletter of intent, proposing an alliance and outlining its long-term strategic technology goals. Its main goal was creating a single unifying open-standard computing platform for the whole industry, made of a new hardware design and a next-generationoperating system.[6] IBM and Motorola planned to have 300 engineers to codevelop chips at a joint manufacturing facility in Austin, Texas. Motorola planned to sell the chips to Apple or anyone else.[7] IBM intended to bring the Macintosh operating system into the enterprise and Apple intended to become a prime customer for the new POWER hardware platform.[6]
Industry analysts considered AIM's announcement to be critically poorly communicated and confusing to the outside world, but nonetheless saw this partnership as an overall competitive force against Microsoft's monopoly and Intel's and Microsoft's duopoly.[6][8] The urgency for the AIM alliance was heightened by Microsoft's recent formation of the competingAdvanced Computing Environment (ACE), a 21-company consortium intended to establish a new industry standard based onx86 andMIPS architecture processors. Some analysts viewed AIM as a direct, and perhaps late, counter-alliance to the formidable ACE. Some viewed AIM as a bold but risky attempt to create a new "mainstream" of computing, with one expert noting the formidable challenge ahead: "Apple and IBM are going to have to be more than friends. They are going to have to be brothers."[2]
Executives said the negotiations were stop and go, sometimes seeming to founder and then speeding up as impasses were resolved. The main disagreements occurred when one company or the other thought it was giving away too much technology. Executives said that the technological contributions of both sides were evaluated and that money was used to balance the terms, in what negotiators referred to as the "cosmic arithmetic". But how much money is being paid, and which company is paying, is closely guarded information.
Between the three companies, more than 400 people had been involved to define a more unified corporate culture with less top-down executive decree. They collaborated as peers and future coworkers in creating the alliance and the basis of its ongoing future dialog which promised to "change the landscape of computing in the 90s".[7]
In 1992, the earth shook: IBM and Apple clasped hands and pronounced themselves allies. From this union sprang Taligent ... developing nothing less than a universal operating system.
On October 2, 1991, the historic AIM alliance was officially formed with a contract between Apple CEOJohn Sculley, IBM Research and Development Chief Jack Kuehler, and IBM Vice President James Cannavino.[10][11][12]: 69 Kuehler said "Together we announce the second decade of personal computing, and it begins today" and Sculley said this would "launch a renaissance in technological innovation", as they signed the foot-high stack of papers comprising the contract.The New York Times called it "an act that a year ago almost no one in the computer world would have imagined possible". It was so sweeping that it underwentantitrust review by the US government.[7]
In 1992, Apple and IBM created two new companies calledTaligent andKaleida Labs as had been declared in the alliance contract, with the expectation that neither would launch any products until the mid-90s.[7] Since 1988, Apple had already developed its next-generation operating system prototype,codenamed Pink; and Taligent Inc. was launched to bring Pink to market as the ultimate crossplatformobject-oriented operating system plusapplication frameworks. Kaleida was to create an object-oriented, cross-platform multimedia scripting language to further enable creation of entirely new kinds of multimedia applications to harness the power of the platform. IBM provided affinity between its ownWorkplace OS and Taligent, replacing Taligent's microkernel with the IBM Microkernel and adopting Taligent's CommonPoint application framework into Workplace OS,OS/2, andAIX.
It's natural that many people saw Apple's alliance with former adversary IBM Corp. as an ominous portent for the independent future of the Macintosh. The sight of Apple and IBM chief executives gripping and grinning on national television wasn't nearly as confusing as their vow to bring the Mac and IBM desktop computers into the 21st century with shared technology such as PowerPC chips, PowerOpen Unix, and new operating software from Taligent Inc. and Kaleida Labs Inc. Present and future shock aside, that's a lot to digest.
— MacWeek[13]
The alliance's hardware is based on thePowerPC processors—the first of which, thePowerPC 601, is a single-chip version of IBM'sPOWER1 CPU. Both IBM and Motorola would manufacture PowerPCintegrated circuits for this new platform. The computer architecture base is called PReP (PowerPC Reference Platform), later complemented withOpenFirmware and renamed CHRP (Common Hardware Reference Platform). IBM used PReP and CHRP for thePCI version of IBM'sRS/6000 platform, which was adapted from existingMicro Channel architecture models, and changed only to support the new60x bus style of the PowerPC.[14]
The development of the PowerPC is centered at an Austin, Texas, facility called the Somerset Design Center. The building is named after the site in Arthurian legend where warring forces put aside their swords, and members of the three teams that staff the building say the spirit that inspired the name has been a key factor in the project's success thus far.
— MacWeek, 1993[13]
Part of the culture here is not to have an IBM or Motorola or Apple culture, but to have our own.
— Motorola's Russell Stanphill, codirector of Somerset[13]
In 1994, with theMac transition to PowerPC processors, Apple deliveredPower Macintosh, its first alliance-based hardware platform, on schedule as predicted by the original alliance contract.[7]Infinite Loop considered the PowerPC to be five years too late to the overall market, "no more than a welcome offering to Apple's own market base", and further hamstrung by the legacy architecture ofSystem 7.[1]: 434–435
In 1995, IT journalist Don Tennant askedBill Gates to reflect upon "what trend or development over the past 20 years had really caught him by surprise". Gates responded with what Tennant described as biting, deadpan sarcasm: "Kaleida and Taligent had less impact than we expected." Tennant believed the explanation to be that "Microsoft's worst nightmare is a conjoined Apple and IBM. No other single change in the dynamics of the IT industry could possibly do as much to emasculate Windows."[15]
Apple had sought a larger partner since the late 1980s, and expected that the AIM alliance would result in IBM becoming a largeMacintosh clone maker. It hoped that IBM might even acquire Apple, with the latter taking over the former'sIBM PC business. Growth inIBM mainframe sales—far more profitable than PCs—caused that company's interest in the latter and Apple to decrease. In 1996,Fortune wrote, "Apple now finds itself in a loveless marriage", dependent on a disinterested IBM that sometimes delivered new CPU designs late.[16] Efforts by Motorola and IBM to popularize PReP and CHRP failed when Apple, IBM, and Taligent all failed to provide a single comprehensive reference operating system for server and personal markets—mainly Taligent's OS or IBM's Workplace OS.Windows NT was the only OS with mainstream consumer recognition that had been ported to PowerPC, but there was virtually no market demand for it on this non-mainstream hardware. Although PowerPC was eventually supported by severalUnix variants,Windows NT, andWorkplace OS (in the form ofOS/2), theseoperating systems generally ran just as well on commodityIntel-based hardware so there was little reason to use the PReP systems. TheBeBox, designed to runBeOS, uses some PReP hardware but is overall incompatible with the standard.Kaleida Labs closed in 1995. Taligent was absorbed into IBM in 1998. Some CHRP machines shipped in 1997 and 1998 without widespread reception.
Relations between Apple and Motorola further deteriorated in 1998 withthe return of Steve Jobs to Apple and his contentious termination of Macintosh clone licensing. Reportedly, a heated telephone conversation between Jobs and Motorola CEO Christopher Galvin resulted in the long-favored Apple being demoted to "just another customer", mainly for PowerPC CPUs. In retaliation, Apple and IBM briefly expelled Motorola from the AIM alliance, and forced Motorola to stop making PowerPC CPUs, leaving IBM to design and produce all future PowerPC chips. Motorola was reinstated into the alliance in 1999.[17]
The PowerPC is the clearest intended success that came out of the AIM alliance.[12]: 48 From 1994 to 2006, Apple used PowerPC chips in almost everyMacintosh. PowerPC also has had success in the embedded market, and invideo game consoles:GameCube,Wii,Wii U,Xbox 360, andPlayStation 3.
After being reinstated into the AIM alliance, Motorola helped IBM to design some laptop PowerPC chips with IBM's manufacturing. In 2004, Motorola spun off its Semiconductor production asFreescale Semiconductor, and left the AIM alliance completely, leaving IBM and Apple in the alliance. Freescale continued to help IBM design PowerPC chips until Freescale was acquired and absorbed byNXP Semiconductors in 2015.
Sculley said in 2003 that not choosing Intel for Apple was "probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made".[4] Appletransitioned entirely toIntel CPUs in 2006, due to eventual disappointment with the direction and performance of PowerPC development as of the G5 model, especially in the fast-growing laptop market. This was seen as the end of the AIM alliance as that left IBM as the sole user of PowerPC.
Taligent was launched from the original AIM alliance, based originally on Apple's Pink operating system. From Taligent came the CommonPoint application framework and many global contributions to internationalization and compilers, in the form ofJava Development Kit 1.1,VisualAge C++, and theInternational Components for Unicode open source project.
Power.org was founded in 2004 by IBM and fifteen partners with intent to develop, enable, and promotePower Architecture technology, such asPowerPC,POWER, and software applications.
TheOpenPOWER Foundation is a collaboration aroundPower ISA-based products initiated by IBM and announced as the "OpenPOWER Consortium" on August 6, 2013. It has more than 250 members. In 2019, IBM announced its open-sourcing of the Power ISA.[18][19]