December 18, 1996 2:00 PM ET
Be CEO downplays reports of Pentium port
By Stephen Howard, Macweek
Special to PC Week

Despite reports that Intel Corp. is in active conversations with Be Inc., CEO Jean-Louis Gassee says his company is not planning to release a Pentium version of its operating system anytime soon. "People ask, 'Why don't you port to the Pentium?' Yeah, yeah. We have a job to do," Gassee said recently. That job is refining the BeOS for the Power Macintosh architecture and bundling it with clones from Power Computing Corp., of Round Rock, Texas. "We have a couple more revisions of the OS to deliver before we can scratch our heads and think about things. Right now, we have to be really maniacally focused," he said. Gassee pointed out that the BeOS is still unfinished, and the company cannot afford to distract itself. "This is still a young operating system--not an adult one yet. So we should stay focused on where we do best, in spite of our youth," he said. "Let's face it: We're still a marginal operating system company. That's who we are." Copyright(c) 1996 Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company is prohibited. PC Week and the PC Week logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. PC Week Online and the PC Week Online logo are trademarks of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. Send mail to PC Week