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From: connery@bnrmtv.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: IBM's new System 2 Personal Computers
Message-ID: <1579@bnrmtv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 5-Apr-87 23:59:09 EST
Article-I.D.: bnrmtv.1579
Posted: Sun Apr  5 23:59:09 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Apr-87 03:22:42 EST
References: <775@oliveb.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Northern Research, Mtn. View, CA
Lines: 37

> 
> The following is a summary of two articles from local San Jose
> Mercury News, concerning the newly announced IBM Personal System 2
> Personal Computers...
> 
As usual the analysis by supposed analysts is real shallow.  While the
Model 30 sells for some $1695 without monitor to you and me, it will sell
for 50% to 60% of that to volume buyers.  At the reduced price these
buyers get the machine is very much a clone buster, it will just not
kill off the clones in the retail market.  I suspect this is a quite
intentional trade off for IBM.

The Mercury News showed its usual lack of conviction.  Reporting included
the comments that the OS would not be available "for months" and that
applications to take advantage of the OS might not be available "for
months after that."  The reality is that OS/2 won't really be available
for over a year, and applications could be two years away.  The 1.0
release of OS/2 is only to give them something they will deliver this
year--it doesn't even include the Presentation Manager (you know, the new
interface to which all applications will be written).  The SAA user interface
guidelines IBM expects everyone to follow won't be availabe till August
at best.  The release date for OS/2 release 1.1, the real thing, won't even
be announced until 4Q, i.e. December.

Nevertheless, I'm afraid these machines are going to be real important,
and over the long haul will have serious impacts.  The key to whether or
not this is true will probably be (a) the degree of backward compatibility
of the new VGA chip set with EGA/CGA/MDA, (b) whether or not the claims
of significant performance improvement due to the new Micro-Channel bus
architecture are true, (c) whether IBM makes any major reliability,
delivery gaffs.

...Glenn
-- 

Glenn Connery, Bell Northern Research, Mountain View, CA
{hplabs,amdahl,3comvax}!bnrmtv!connery