Apple acts to expel NT from Expo

Apple has begun to fight back against the threat of Windows NT -- by getting NT workstation specialist Intergraph's systems thrown out of MacWorld Expo. Intergraph, which regularly seeks to lure MacWorld attendees over to Wintel, had hoped to demo its 450MHz Intel Xeon-based multi-processor NT systems right next to Apple's stand, but Apple cried foul and the show's organisers persuaded Intergraph to can their stand. "We warned Intergraph prior to arriving that they could only run a Mac-clone environment running off an Intergraph Windows NT server," said Colin Crawford, president and CEO of MacPublishing -- the company the publishes MacWorld magazine and is a division of IDG, the show's owner -- speaking to US newswire TechWeb. "What they turned up with was Windows NT workstations expecting to run them in a Mac-only environment. This was a sensitive issue: Apple didn't want it, I didn't want it, and we had to negotiate on it." The negotiations are believed to involve a compensation package for Intergraph, even though it was expelled under a clause in the exhibitors' contract forbidding actions and behaviour not in the interest of the Expo. ®