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From: frotz@drivax.UUCP (Frotz)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Real Soon Now Rumors
Message-ID: <1X9NYQ@drivax.UUCP>
Date: 20 Aug 90 19:30:57 GMT
References: <12176@.UUCP> <1990Aug19.064601.21406@uwasa.fi>
Sender: frotz@dri.com
Reply-To: frotz@dri.com
Organization: Digital Research, Monterey CA
Lines: 47

ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) writes:

]The serious reason for saying this is that Dos 4 belongs to the
]series of the big flops of the 1980's, right along to OS/2 (which
]takes the first price).  ...the discrepancy
]between what has been the expected and the realized rate of adoption
]of these operating systems.  I wonder when technicians will learn
]the ability to listen to the market.

Timo, I would suggest that the technicians (read: development
engineers) are not necessarily those responsible for the delay in
getting to market. 

I can say from personal experience (observations of internal
decision making) that much of this delay is in Marketing
Requirements as understood by the various Mktg/Weanies and
Weasles(TM) and I assume the same is true in many other
companies.  For the longest time many truly believed that the
next step to DOS 3.3 was multi-tasking and Multi-user support.
Certainly history shows that this is not necessarily true due to
a number of factors (probably the biggest is support for dirty
apps). 

We have long been in the multi-tasking business (Does any one
remember MP/M?... Sorry to use profanity...;-) And our assumption
was that our solution is right.  Personally I think that the DOS
platform will die hard.  Companies are now realizing that DOS4
was a mistake and that we [DRI] (and I assume that there are
others out there as well) now need to provide superior support at
the 3.3 compatibility level.  Certainly DOS5 (and ...ahem... our
DRDOS5) are aimed at this enhanced functionality while
maintaining the 3.3 support level.

Anyone who uses any of these non-standard features (yes,
including DRDOS' own >32M support) will be opening a pandora's
box, if there is even the slightest hint that another
"compatibile" OS is going to be run on the same box.

Certainly in the case of MSDOS5 there is an unprecedented request
for comment about what is needed from the user community.  (I
only hope that this continues in the future, regardless of which
company actually succeeds in the market place.)
--
Frotz

Disclaimer: This is actually the first time that I may not
actually represent the opinion of the company...;-)