2 Feb
2007
2 Feb
'07
5:52 p.m.
Had it been anything but stillborn, it would not
have been
discontinued; IBM does NOT like to give up on a product. The fact that
it was not for sale in retail outlets for about the last ten years
should indicate it's acceptance rate. It sold poorly even when it was
the best O/S available. If, by "widely deployed," you mean a large
average distance between installations, I would have to agree. <Grin>
I think the problem that many are having is the term "stillborn" :) If
you'll remember, OS/2 had actually a few problems that eventually lead
to it's demise. Back when Microsoft was still publicly backing it, it
was in it's early 16bit incarnation. It was slow, not very Windows
compatible, not very sexy (it wasn't until 1.3 that it "caught up"
graphically with Win 3.x), and a resource hog. At the time getting
people to take ANY pc based system seriously in the type of markets that
OS/2 was gunning for was a way steep uphill battle. By the time WARP
came out (OS/2 3.x), what some would call the "real" OS/2, it was far
too little far too late. I think what really killed OS/2 was Win 3.1,
it didn't make it out of gestation in time. Sales took off, Bill
publicly ditched OS/2 and people really didn't have a compelling reason
to switch (i.e. no native apps).
I'm an old OS/2 fanboy from long ago (I remember with fondness IBM
finally delivering OS/2 1.0 and opening the package only to read that
this fancy new "Presentation Manager" wouldn't be shipping until 1.1).
George