Windows 2000 run natively on AS/400?

Speaking at a technical user conference (COMMON), an IBM source
said Microsoft has proposed porting Windows 2000 to the AS/400 (
IBMPower-4 PowerPCprocessor).

http://www.computerworld.com/home/print.nsf/CWFlash/000316C9D2

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Windows 2000 to run native on the AS/400? 

By Marc Songini, Network World Fusion
03/16/2000 SAN DIEGO - Imagine running Windows 2000 natively on the AS/400?
Well, it is at least within the realm of possibility, according to an IBM
source. 
The source said that in recent months Microsoft Corp. made a proposal to IBM
to port its Windows 2000 operating system to run on the IBM Power-4 PowerPC
processor. The next-generation 64-bit chip is slated for release in the
AS/400 server late in 2001. The Power-4 will have 170 million transistors,
Non-Uniform Memory Access architecture and three levels of cache. IBM's
management is investigating the proposal, and its status is uncertain, the
source said. 
Currently, users can run Windows NT on an Intel chip-based PC server card
that sits in the AS/400. The card shares some resources with OS/400, the
AS/400 operating system. But if the Microsoft port occurs, it would be the
first time users could actually run Windows 2000 as the machine's operating
system. The source, who was addressing a group of users at the COMMON
technical user conference here, said the proposal, if approved, could mean a
considerable boost in reliability and scalability for Windows 2000. The
Power-4 has greater I/O than the Intel chip architecture Microsoft currently
writes its operating system to, the company said. 
"I think it would be a good deal," the source said. On the other hand, the
company noted that other IBM server units might be uncomfortable with the
alliance, which could mean Windows 2000 becomes a much more scalable and
reliable operating system than before and, therefore, a competitor to IBM's
high-end Unix boxes or mainframes. Nevertheless, the source said: "I'd like
to see the IBM logo on a Win 2000 server." 
An IBM spokesperson declined to comment on the matter. 
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