2 Feb
2007
2 Feb
'07
5:15 p.m.
On Fri, 2007-02-02 at 11:16 -0500, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Feb 1, 2007, at 4:05 PM, Warren Wolfe wrote:
NOTHING could be farther from the truth? Ahem. Well, your last
sentence is, actually. OS/2 started out as a theoretically 50/50
project by Microsoft and IBM. Over time, IBM took over more of the
work. The clash of corporate cultures was immense, and became
unbearable for both parties. The project was essentially dropped as a
joint project, and IBM picked it up and finished it. Microsoft carried
on with OS/3 development, and changed its name to Windows NT. IBM had
promised it to customers, and insisted upon delivering.
IBM licensed MS-DOS from Microsoft, and
CP/M-86 from Digital
Research, and did NOT develop their own Operating System until OS/2,
which was essentially stillborn.
Oh nonono. I'm sorry to have to correct you here Warren, but
nothing could be further from the truth. First, OS/2 was written by
Microsoft and sold to IBM. OS/2 was FAR from stillborn...it was in use in damn
near every
bank office in the country for a very long time, with probably
half of those installations likely still in place...
Oh, please. OS/2 NEVER took off, despite a Big Blue push, and
despite being better in essentially all respects than Windows. Sure,
some business customers bought it. After a while, it was so cheap, it
begged companies to buy it. I suspect many of them bought it BECAUSE it
was such an orphan -- employees could not bring in games to play,
because almost no games EXISTED for the platform. As a mainstream
operating system, I claimed it was stillborn, and I maintain that claim.
There are still DOS machines running, but that does not make DOS a
modern contender. DOS, however, once WAS the mainstream O/S, unlike
OS/2. OS/2 never made a noticeable dent in the installed Intel base.
IIRC, OS/2 never went above 20% even in the server market -- and this is
back when the alternatives were totally bug-saturated. OS/2 was a great
deal better than Windows, but OS/2 has stagnated for at least a decade,
and that is a virtual eternity in the computer industry. Banks went for
it, reasonably big time, back when it was a new, hot thing... Financial
institutions are notoriously pokey about changing things, and they
stayed with OS/2 after it was a mature, then ripe, then partially mouldy
product. Even ATMs are leaving the OS/2 world in droves. See:
http://www.atmmarketplace.com/article.php?id=6490
I know the two banks I go to regularly still run it on
at
least one desktop. OS/2 is an extremely widely deployed operating
system...you just can't buy it in Best Buy, so people think it's
dead...or never lived in the first place. It was only discontinued
1.5 years ago.
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>
Please note that this is NOT coming from an OS/2
fan. ;)
Well, actually, I kind of WAS/AM an OS/2 fan. I just knew, however,
it was doomed to obscurity, and banishment to the deepest dungeons of
the financial sector. It was the first O/S for home machines that did a
competent job of multi-tasking. It's a shame it never sold as well as
it should, but, those are the breaks. If quality were the main issue,
home machines today would be made by IBM or Processor Technology, and
run OS/2 or Linux, on Motorola chips.
Peace,
Warren E. Wolfe
wizard at voyager.net