Xref: utzoo comp.os.msdos.misc:2015 comp.windows.ms:12462 comp.os.os2.misc:1299
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!ns-mx!pmvax.weeg.uiowa.edu!cmdbyk
From: cmdbyk@pmvax.weeg.uiowa.edu (Karl Boyken)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.windows.ms,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 is here!
Message-ID: <5978@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Date: 9 May 91 14:17:58 GMT
References: <q18gr0f@rpi.edu> <1991May8.224116.11897@herald.usask.ca>
Sender: news@ns-mx.uiowa.edu
Reply-To: cmdbyk@pmvax.weeg.uiowa.edu
Followup-To: comp.os.msdos.misc
Organization: State Health Registry of Iowa
Lines: 27
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS V1.3-4.1

I think we can see the fate of OS/2 if we look at its hardware analog,
the MCA machine.  When IBM introduced the PS/2, it touted its bus as
superior to the ISA bus, and it was.  And the PS/2 line has been moderately
successful--at least, it's still here, unlike the PC Jr and the PC 
Convertible.  But what share of the PC market did the PS/2 line obtain when
competing against the ISA bus?  And with the EISA bus becoming more available, 
what share will the PS/2 have in the future?  IBM has argued that the MCA is 
technically superior to the EISA bus.  Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.  But 
technical superiority, real or imagined, is not giving IBM an overwhelming 
edge in the market.

I think we can read the fate of OS/2 and Windows in the fate of the MCA
and ISA/EISA buses.  OS/2 probably won't dry up and blow away.  But I
doubt it will supplant DOS/Windows; in fact, I'd guess DOS/Windows will be
more popular, for similar reasons:  price (do you really think Microsoft
won't compete in price against IBM?), relative ease of upgrading (you don't 
have to install an OS and reinstall all your apps to install Windows), the 
availability and price of add-ins (OS/2 apps are the software equivalent of 
MCA cards:  scarce and overpriced), and the perceived return on investment
by developers (if you wanted to make bigger bucks faster, which would you
develop, a Windows app or an OS/2 app?).

    ** _My_ views, no one else's--except those I plagiarize. **
Karl Boyken, Project Analyst          | "It's so easy to slip, it's
State Health Registry of Iowa         |  so easy to fall and let your
Iowa City, IA                         |  memory drift into nothing
Internet: cmdbyk@pmvax.weeg.uiowa.edu |  at all." -- Lowell George