Apple Licenses Software To Ibm

Apple Computer Inc. on Monday licensed its Macintosh software to International Business Machines Corp., in an effort to spread its gospel to a wider audience.

Apple kept its operating system to itself until 1994, when it began awarding licenses to a few clone makers. Most other personal computer makers’ machines use Intel Corp. chips and software from Microsoft Corp. instead.

With its market share shrinking, Apple needs to get more Mac systems in use so software developers will continue to write for it. Consumers are less interested in buying machines with fewer programs.

“This will help Apple expand the low end of the market, and that is where they have had problems,” said analyst Vadim Zlotnikov.