At 10:13 PM 5/26/00 -0400, you wrote:
>On Fri, May 26, 2000 at 01:29:32PM -0400, Technoid Mutant wrote:
> >The market is so steeped in MS-generated ignorance and bigotry against OS/2
> >that
> >most people in this group have little or no experience with it.
>
>[snip]
>
>The weird thing is, M$'s absolute stranglehold on the marketplace has really
>only been for the last few years. Or at least it seems that way, because
>each new height of predatory behavior they get away with makes the previous
>rounds seem insignificant. So I don't get how they managed to lock out IBM.
>I can understand why early OS/2 didn't make much of a splash, it was a lot of
>weight for the relatively wussified 286 CPUs to support. Early Windows was
>too big for the PCs of the time too, and it was largely ignored as a result.
>But OS/2 V2.0 and the 386+ machines were a very good match for each other.
>It deserved to succeed, and at the time Windows was only just starting to
>snowball, so OS/2 should have been there in time to really get some market
>share.
I think Microsoft's FUD did play a major role in keeping the power of OS/2
a secret. However, I believe that IBM is just as responsible for the
failure. IBM went out of their way to imply that OS/2 would only work on
PS/2's. At the very least the implication was that it would certainly work
"better" on a PS/2. This hurt OS/2 sales very badly.
In addition, I found IBM very difficult to work with. They were never very
forthcoming with technical information. I don't think this was because of
the arrogance/incompetence found in working with Microsoft today. Rather,
I think IBM's bureaucracy left precious few people with the authority to
release information.
At the time I was working for a large company who was sinking millions into
OS/2 development. We constantly had to escalate problems up our management
chain so one of our VP's could call one of IBM's VP's to get some action.
On the other hand Microsoft was very forthcoming back in the late 80's and
early 90's. They published all manner of technical information on OS/2 and
when you had a problem you generally got to work with one of their developers.
I was very sorry that OS/2 never got the respect it deserved but I was
never surprised.
Regards,
Bob
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Bob Withers Do or do not, there is no try.
bwit_at_pobox.com Yoda.
http://www.ruffboy.com
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Received on Sat May 27 2000 - 07:23:29 BST