IBM is close to striking a deal with Compaq to make copper Alphas. We predicted that last February, but yesterday US magazine CRN got confirmation from an IBM group VP of worldwide marketing. He said that IBM and Compaq had been in discussion for some time over the move. Both Compaq and API say they will produce copper Alpha processors in the near future. Next year, Alpha is likely to hit 1.4GHz, according to our sources. ®