In November 1991, Apple launched A/UX 3.0, planning to synchronize the two ongoing release schedules of A/UX and System 7. At that time, the company also preannounced A/UX 4.0, expected for release in 1993 or 1994. The announcement expounded upon the historic technology partnership between Apple and IBM, expecting to merge Apple's user-friendly graphical interface and desktop applications market with IBM's highly scalable Unix server market, and allowing the two companies to enter what Apple believed to be an emerging "general desktop open systems market". The upcoming A/UX 4.0 would target the PowerOpen Environment ABI, merge features of IBM's AIX variant of Unix into A/UX, and use the OSF/1 kernel from the Open Software Foundation. A/UX 3.0 would serve as an "important migration path" to this new system, making Unix and System 7 applications compliant with the PowerOpen specification. The future A/UX 4.0 and AIX operating systems were intended to run on a variety of IBM's POWER and PowerPC hardware, and on Apple's PowerPC-based hardware.