IBM gets Avid seal of approval

NEWS IBM is launching a direct challenge on Apple's domination of the global media industry. The company's Intellistation M Pro is the first workstation to receive certification from Avid Technology, which is rewriting its flagship editing system, Media Composer, to run on Windows NT 4.0. Until now Media Composer has only been available on the Apple Macintosh but Avid says it will launch its NT version in the US and Europe by summer. IBM claims Intellistation is designed to meet the high demands of the video editing profession and will provide an Intel and NT alternative to the Macintosh. A spokesman for Big Blue said: "Avid has different lines of software that are used by prime time TV show editors - but it has never had an NT version and Media Composer is the most popular of those applications. "Although the new version would work on any kind of NT workstation, it is only the IBM Intellistation that came through Avid's testing process." Matthew Wilkins, workstation analyst at DataPro, believes the certification is important for IBM and the Intellistation brand. "Apple is very secure in the desktop publishing market and this will help them move into it by giving them credibility. But breaking into that market won't be easy because the design and graphics industry is very Mac loyal. "Persuading them to move all their hardware to Wintel when everything they have now is Apple will be tough," Wilkins said. But Avid maintains there is a strong demand for an NT-based solution. A spokesman said: "We are already seeing the demand across the board, from Hollywood to corporate customers. It is a question of price performance - they get the same functionality and flexibility as the Mac platform but at lower cost."