Apple previews Rhapsody with Mac OS 8

Apple Computer will spend the next 18 months or so promoting the newestrelease of the MacOS--version 8.0--to users and developers as a preview totheir "NeXT-generation" OS, code-named "Rhapsody." Apple will attempt to woo developers with free tools and seminars beginning May 13 at its annualDevelopers Conference in San Diego.

"This is the time when developers want to see what's up," said Guerrino De Luca, Apple's executive vice president of marketing. "We'll talk about the dual-OS strategy and discuss OpenStep for Windows NT and Mac." OpenStep isan object-oriented software development environment based on NeXTStep.

"We'll also offer hundreds to thousands of dollars in tools as a prelude to Rhapsody."

Apple plans to release Mac OS 8 this summer along with Rhapsody programmingtools and APIs. Late in 1997, the company will release a version of Rhapsody that is not backwards-compatible with Macintosh software. A "unified" version, due in mid-1998, will offer a compatibility layer withexisting Mac software