Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!noose.ecn.purdue.edu!en.ecn.purdue.edu!stevew
From: stevew@en.ecn.purdue.edu (Steven L Wootton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Microsoft And Friends
Summary: Which OS/2 are you talking about?
Message-ID: <1990Nov12.180835.9348@en.ecn.purdue.edu>
Date: 12 Nov 90 18:08:35 GMT
References: <4624@gara.une.oz.au> <90313.225702RFM@psuvm.psu.edu> <28046@usc>
Organization: Purdue University Engineering Computer Network
Lines: 47


Did anyone else read this, or am I the only UnixWorld reader here?

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OS/2 MEETS ITS MAKER  --  UnixWorld, November 1990 page 16

IBM has taken OS/2 back.  In September, Big Blue announced it has taken
over virtually all OS/2 development from Microsoft, including control of
all versions of OS/2 for Intel 286 and 386 CPUs.  Microsoft will continue
to work on Portable OS/2, its version for non-Intel processors, which
Microsoft has said will not be ready for at least several years.

From IBM's point of view, OS/2 has always been the low end of its Systems
Application Architecture line of interoperable, proprietary operating
systems spanning PCs, minis, and mainframes.

When IBM and Microsoft originally went to work on OS/2 in 1985, the
arrangement mirrored their working relationship for MS-DOS.  The DOS
operating system has sold tens of millions of copies for IBM and non-IBM
desktop computers.  IBM hoped that OS/2 would prove to be another PC-DOS,
and as recently as two years ago market researcher Future Computing Inc.
was predicting that OS/2 would represent more than 50% of the operating
systems sold with business PCs in 1991.  That hope hasn't materialized,
however, as unit sales of OS/2 have been a small fraction of those for DOS.
The new all-IBM OS/2 is expected to be targeted at current IBM mainframe
and minicomputer installations.
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If this story is true, it seems to me that IBM's taking OS/2 back for use
as part of SAA is the kiss of death, and Microsoft's "several year"
timeframe for Portable OS/2 is the bullet in OS/2's head.  Is Microsoft
betting that UNIX will not get any better over the course of the next
several years, thereby making OS/2 obviously superior whenever it gets
done?

When I look back on unix, several years ago we had Version 7.  Now there's
4.3 Reno, SysVr4, mach with a unix frontend, and several other
more-customized variants.  Where will unix be several years from now?  Will
a portable OS/2 be able to compete with a 20-year-old product which has
been constantly evolving to meet its customers' needs?

Did I just dream all of this?  Who killed Laura Palmer?

Steve Wootton
stevew@ecn.purdue.edu
stevew@pur-ee.uucp
stevew%ecn.purdue.edu@purccvm.bitnet