IMG just met with ATI staff, and they had quite a bombshell to drop! You may have noted in our Keynote report that we were curious about the lack of mention of ATI hardware, specifically the Radeon card, which has been announced for Mac OS today and was rumored to be an OEM option for the new Power Macintoshes.

Well, that rumor cost ATI, big time! When the Bizwire report on Macworld Expo Exhibitors surfaced, dozens of news outlets (including IMG) reported ATI's plans for the Expo. However, that short summary gave away several key secrets from the Keynote - specifically, it hinted at the two new PowerMacs (the MP models) and the new iMac DV SE revision, and Steve Jobs was extremely upset at this. He likes surprises.

According to ATI, Steve ordered all Radeons to be pulled from the show floor, and wiped all mention of ATI out of his keynote speech. He also canceled part of the keynote where an ATI exec was supposed to speak, and demo the Radeon! It seems no one leaks Steve's secrets without dire penalty. It wasn't clear who was at fault for the leak, but it seems to have come from the ATI side.

This tiff between Apple and ATI is presumed to be temporary; ATI is working to get their demo Radeon cards back on the show floor and still has plans to ship an AGP Radeon model in September, followed closely by a PCI model. Also, the Radeon cards are still presumed to become OEM options for the MP G4 towers at some point.

In related news, we understand that the graphics cards in the revamped iMac DV line are indeed Rage Pro 128 card, limited to 8 MB of memory. The G4 Cube ships with a 16-MB Rage 128 Pro card in a 2X AGP slot. The small form factor of the Cube may preclude the installation of many 3rd-party video cards, as will its lack of a fan; for example, the 3dfx Voodoo5 card is almost 13 inches in length.

We'll bring you more reports on ATI's new hardware as the expo continues. One thing is for sure - they have learned to fear the wrath of Steve!

ATI Surprise for Macworld Expo

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