Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!microsoft!edwardj From: edwardj@microsoft.UUCP (Edward JUNG) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Death of OS/2? (was Re: Microsoft OS/2?) Keywords: OS/2, Presentation Manager, Microsoft Message-ID: <70471@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 5 Feb 91 02:43:45 GMT References: <2467@beguine.UUCP> <29814@usc> Reply-To: edwardj@microsoft.UUCP (Edward JUNG) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 69 In article <29814@usc> ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes: >Microsoft knows OS/2 is a disaster and is definitely not doing >any more 386-assembly work on OS/2. Work on OS/2 in C is also on >back burner; the major software efforts are on Windows 3 and it's >children. IBM is continuing work on OS/2 in 386-assembly; there >is some news about IBM-Novell deals on that front. Although you had a line "Start_of_Speculation", you put it *after* the above paragraph when it should have come *before*! This is speculative (and would come as a surprise to people working on such things). Microsoft has previously announced that it gave IBM primary control over the development of OS/2 2.0, but retained primary control over OS/2 3.0. As far as work on C being on the back-burner, well, that's partly true since alot of the work is actually in C++. Although OS/2 hasn't sold "well" in the marketplace, developers seem to like it better than Unix (an independent survey of companies developing for both), and "not selling well" is still more copies than any given version of Unix is selling (mod sales and marketing reworking of figures). >-------Start_of_Speculation---------- > >In the long run, I suppose Microsoft understands Intel processors >are a dead end and would want to migrate to SPARC/MIPS/88k. The >only way to do that is to rewrite in C. The best they can hope >for in that project is 100% source compatibility between Windows 4 >applications and OS/2 written in C for (say) SPARC. I assume >that will be their target next. I don't know what you mean by "dead end". The major advantage to a portable OS (which is what OS/2 3.0 is) is that is does not depend upon the vagaries of chip economies. Currently a RISC processor is attractive not because it blows the doors off a CISC processor (indeed it doesn't by all that much), but because the RISC processors that are multiply sourced are very cheap (e.g. SPARC, MIPS are cheap compared to 68k and Intel). If you are looking to a 100MIPS workstation for under $5k, then you are probably looking at a RISC machine. >Writing an OS is a different kettle >of fish! Very well put. Microsoft has spent alot of time and money finding this out. The market will tell us if future OS Microsoft produces "better meet the needs of the user" or not. Don't be surprised to find our future OS to be "object oriented", micro-kernel, and low-overhead multiprocessing; in short, everything that Mach promised to be but isn't (yet) unless you rewrite it yourself. But more importantly, the OS will support applications and end-user needs (like information retrieval and categorization), which is, after all, what an OS is for. If you want POSIX compliance, PM or Windows compatibility, or security, then you'll want OS/2. A long time ago, people postulated that Apple should deliver a secure pre-emptive multiprocessing portable object-oriented protected client-server distributed OS with a "Mac compatibility" layer (eg virtual machine). This is how we are positioning OS/2. -- Edward Jung Microsoft Corp. My opinions do not reflect any policy of my employer.