Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!autodesk!glang
From: glang@Autodesk.COM (Gary Lang)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Death of OS/2? (was Re: Microsoft OS/2?)
Keywords: OS/2, Presentation Manager, Microsoft
Message-ID: <2774@autodesk.COM>
Date: 15 Feb 91 10:01:00 GMT
References: <2467@beguine.UUCP> <29814@usc> <70447@microsoft.UUCP> <1991Feb10.121445.9312@news.arc.nasa.gov>
Organization: Autodesk, Inc., Sausalito, CA
Lines: 70


Mr. Ogawa asks:
> Can I buy MS Word for Unix?

and then infers that Unix came from Bell Labs and so what could MS
have to do with it?

MS developed Xenix several years ago. SCO took hold of it and sold and
extended it. SCO is 20% owned by MS. SCO ships more Unix licenses
than anybody. Xenix became an official Unix a few years ago.
MSWord 5.0 is available for this Unix, and Multiplan has been available
for years as well.

If MS does do a new OS, I hope it's a superset of what Unix has these
days; the stuff Edward talked about sounds a little more interesting
than anything I've heard out of Redmond. to date. On the other hand, although
an "independent survey" showed that developers "prefer" OS/2, I would
have to see what exact choices were laid out in front of them. 

They really preferred LAN Manager to NFS? They really preferred
the DOS file system to the Unix one? They really preferred managing
segments and sub-segments of memory to flat address spaces and simple
pointers? I have never met these people before.

Say what you will, but if developers really "preferred" OS/2 as you said
the survey showed, then where did all the applications for OS/2 and PM
in particular wind up? There are more shipping shrink-wrapped NeXTStep apps 
than there ever were PM applications. I'm missing something here.

Boy you must have gotten a hell of a salary when you were lured away
from your cube to work at MS, (smiles, grins, and so on) Edward!

My real beef with MS has nothing to do with technology. It's more 
stuff like Steve Baumer speaking at a Windows Dev. Conference in late
'86 and telling us that we Windows developers were "developing OS/2
apps today" and that when OS/2 finally shipped, we'd just recompile 
our programs. Yes, he actually said this 6 months before OS/2 shipped.
It's not likely that GDDM was slipped into the API for PM in 6 months.
Also, I asked him myself if by developing Windows/PM applications
if my company wasn't opening itself up for a look and feel lawsuit.
His answer? "Microsoft is the largest developer of Macintosh applications
in the market. Apple is not about to sue us or any of our developers".

This was at the OS/2 Masterbuilders conference in early 1987. A year
later, whammo. 

Then the support for OS/2 in its initial incarnation wavered as 
momentum for Windows grew, and folks like SPC and Lotus are left standing
around going "what happenned" while MS merrily sells Excel, Word, 
PowerPoint and so on to the burgeoning Windows market that they pushed
in preference to the one that everyone else tried to get going in, at
their direction( and they are the OS company so Lotus and SPC weren't dumb.

This is why Apple and NeXT will always have a market. They are
predictable and directionally reliable. Apple will do the next Macintosh
OS and NeXT will continue to improve their product, which in terms of
programmability for neat programs is years ahead of the rumors that
are being dropped here from MS. 

Hopefully, so will MS. Unless they wait too long to release the neat 
stuff they're discussing here. Good luck to Gordon and the gang up there.

luck to everybody there.
I shudder to think about all of the small frys who got screwed in this 
situation).
-- 
Gary T. Lang  (415)332-2344 x2702  
Autodesk, Inc.
Sausalito, CA.
MCI: 370-0730