This would have made some sense, since the 68000 was big-endian, like most of the bigger IBM hardware. The 68000 may have been just ready for market introduction, but reportedly Motorola couldn’t provide 5,000 pre-production samples required for IBM’s internal evaluation process. (At least, this is what I’ve read. I’m not so sure about the quite excessive number of samples. This may be off a magnitude or two.)
Regarding management not being so sure about the PC: Mind that IBM was struggling all over the 1970s over a PC design (even before the trinity of 1977). There were several concepts, like “Yellow Bird”, a very promising prototype “Aquarius” based on bubble memory modules, which even made it to pre-production prototype stage (including a complete marketing concept), and out-sourced design studies (e.g., there’s one by Eliot Noyes Associates based on unknown hardware). After the dismissal of “Aquarius” (apparently for fading confidence in bubble memory) upper management apparently just gave up. At some point, just before Project “Chess”, which became the IBM PC, IBM even considered buying Atari and basing their PC on the Atari 800. (At least, there’s a design study for this.)
Some of this (including images) can be found in “Delete.” by Paul Atkinson.
IBM “Yellow Bird” mockup (Tom Hardy, 1976; image: “Delete.”):
Envisioning home computing with “Yellow Bird” in 1976 (image: “Delete.”)
IBM Aquarius (Tom Hardy, 1977; image: “Delete.”):
IBM “Atari PC” design study (Tom Hardy, 1979; image: “Delete.”):
Here’s a sketch for the Noyes Associates project:
Source and further information: “IBM’s Home Computer, 1977 | Dan Formosa”
“The prototypes created for IBM were a bit more interesting than their 1981 PC – this 1977 project was envisioned in three versions: beige, deep red, and teak. Teak? Yep – a real wood cabinet.”
It seems, contrary to common belief, IBM didn’t “miss out on the home computer”, they just tried too hard…