IBM’s next PowerPC 970 processor–which Apple uses in its iMac and Power Mac G5–will feature technology that allows it to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, according to Karl Freund, vice president, IBM eServer pSeries. “Doing so allows a computer to handle more jobs at the same time and to be used more efficiently,” reports CNET News.com. “The technology, called partitioning, relies on a concept called virtualization that breaks the hard link between an operating system and the underlying hardware… Freund declined to comment on when in 2005 the chip is scheduled to arrive but said it’s ‘pretty late in the design cycle now.’ Apple plans to use it, he added.”
