Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!sri-unix!rutgers!uwvax!oddjob!gargoyle!vijit!madsen From: madsen@vijit.UUCP (Dave Madsen) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: UNIX vs. OS/2 Message-ID: <120@vijit.UUCP> Date: Mon, 12-Oct-87 01:29:57 EDT Article-I.D.: vijit.120 Posted: Mon Oct 12 01:29:57 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 13-Oct-87 02:49:32 EDT References: <494@parcvax.Xerox.COM> <961@looking.UUCP> <498@parcvax.Xerox.COM> <520@parcvax.Xerox.COM> Organization: Wang Labs, Oakbrook, IL Lines: 234 Summary: `Fundamental Difference': Technical vs. Marketing (I apologize for the long article, but when I get going...) In article <520@parcvax.Xerox.COM>, burton@parcvax.Xerox.COM (Philip M. Burton) writes: > In article <3835@zen.berkeley.edu> iverson@cory.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Tim Iverson) writes: > >In article <3834@zen.berkeley.edu> c60b-ia@buddy.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Sugih Jamin) writes: > >[in response to an article comparing UNIX vs. OS/2 to MSDOS vs. CP/M] > >>The difference is: MS-DOS can do *much* more than can CP/M. > > > >Not true. When it was first released, MSDOS couldn't fight its way out of > >a wet paper bag (it still can't, but then it doesn't have to). > > > >> While OS/2 > >>won't be that much more powerful than UNIX, if at all. > > > >You seem to have it wrong here (as well as not having listened to the > >recent articles). UNIX, now, is much a more capable and complex OS than > >OS/2 will be when it is released. > > Sigh .... UNIX will stills have lots of power that the average OS/2 user > can't/won't use. Yep. And we all know that 640K is *TEN* times 64K, surely more than enough memory for "Joe User". Arguments like this have been said time and time again, and each time newer programs come out (by user demand) that stretch the hardware just a little bit more, we say "Boy! How could we EVER have been SO WRONG about the capacity we needed!". People will always need to stretch their computers "just a little bit more" as they attempt problems that are "just a little bit more complex". This goes for Joe User who now needs a '386 to recompute his spreadsheet in finite time and for those who eagerly await the next supercomputer. And the NEXT generation of more powerful hardware will be ready far ahead of the version of OS/2 to drive it. (Hmmm, was that a vote of confidence for the availability of the '486?) > After all, OS/2 is a single-user, multi-tasking system, > and UNIX is a multi-user, multi-tasking system. There's a fundamental > difference, or should be, between the two. Maybe I'm dense today, but once you've got multi-tasking, the difference between single user and multi user is marketing, NOT technical. I think that Microsoft has carefully said that OS/2 is single user because they want to have their OS/2 Mama Leone's dinner [see below] and eat their Xenix Marie Antoinette dessert cake, too. Now, let's talk to Joe User (a stock broker/analyst)... Well, I bought this package that helps me in my business. It's a program running all the time that's monitoring the market (looking for certain information) and displaying the results while I'm, say, working on a spreadsheet. There's a second monitor for the stock display as it's more convenient to glance at if I want while I do other work. I bought yet another monitor and tied it to the first stock monitor and put it in the other room so I can see what's happening from multiple places. I added a special stock market keyboard with a mouse so that I can easily interact with that stock program. Is my system single-user? Sure, I'm the only one that uses the system right now. [But let's ask the OS its opinion.] Login/logout? Well, I don't know exactly what you mean, but I DID buy this package that lets me secure the system so someone can't just walk up and mess up my work. How do I turn the system off? Well, I have to make sure that that stock program is told to finish because otherwise it'd really mess up my historical data. Then I can turn it off. Backup? You bet! I lost my data once before, and I don't want it to happen again! I used to use just MSDOS for my spreadsheets and have this separate box for my stock tracking, but that stock box wouldn't let me share the data with my spreadsheet on the computer. I had to type in all the figures from the stock box into the spreadsheet by hand. So I bought _this_ machine. The consultants I called wanted so much money to make the old PC and the stock machine compatible that I thought I might as well spend the money for something that's expandable. The consultants said something about a "local area network" but it was pretty expensive and it seemed to be awfully hard to work with for what I want. Anyway, it was more than what I need now; it was easier to have one machine do many things. ... Do you think this is far-fetched? Maybe too complex a scenario? The point is, you could plug in OS/2 OR Unix in the above, and as long as you hid the "heavy-duty" stuff from the user, you'd be ok. He's willing to accept that there's certain things you just have to do to keep humming along. OS/2 is being touted as the successor to MSDOS, and that it'll have much more capability. So it will attract users who are at the high end of MSDOS right now; these users will tend to be the more sophisticated ones who could just as easily learn to handle the system administration for a single-user Unix as for a single-user OS/2. Backup will not be foreign to them. They'll have had diskettes/disks/file systems that have died before. They know that even a car requires maintenance. Note that these are all topics that marketing should be aware of and should present to a prospect. As a salesperson selling the system, I would not feel adverse to selling them a "quick" training course, whether it be a video course or a workbook or even a program on the computer itself doing instruction. Even if the above mythical "stock program" were bought mail-order, it should point out these topics. WHEN COMPLEXITY INCREASES, THERE MUST BE MORE USER SOPHISTICATION, WHETHER IT'S UNIX OR OS/2. The users WILL pay, either in aggravation because they're "a bull in a china shop" or in money because they know that they need training. And make no mistake, the general complexity of users' applications WILL increase as I said above. (Experience talking here). > As for the _single-user_ power of the two, I wouldn't be surprised if they > weren't that far apart. (Remember that I'm one of "those marketing types" > so I can't back up that claim.) > > Guys, there's a business opportunity here. Don't try to be King Canute, > commanding the waves to stop. [Text deleted] Just go with the flow. You speak with prescient certainty. Just for interest's sake, what were your feelings when the CP/M - MSDOS wars were big news? As an aside to Philip Burton, *having read your many postings* on this issue, I get the feeling you're saying "Yes, I really truly like Unix and it's for sure my favorite operating system, but, fellas, I'm sorry to say that we're all doomed and there's not a lick of difference we can make." Please, this is NOT an attack on you; I just got that feeling from your writings and was puzzled by it. Perhaps that's why there were all these postings generated by your original article. > >Unfortunately, OS/2, when it finally reaches the distributor's shelves, > >will already have greater popularity among PC users than all of the > >flavors of UNIX combined. The big corporations will buy it because it > >has been baptized and blessed by big blue (how's that for alliteration!) > >and the little guys will eat it up because it allows them to keep abreast > >of current innovation while maintaining their current investment in software, > >which is considerable. This is the marketing point of view, and the one > >that will win out in the wide world of users. > > > Sigh again... OS/2 will be embraced by Lotus, Ashton-Tate, Microsoft (which > will obviously push all its applications), and damn near everyone else except > perhaps the game/educational developers. Then the users will embrace OS/2. > But, since these developers want to do what they think customers want, they > will feel pushed into OS/2. Kind of circular, but that's how things often > happen. It's a question of the market you're in, too. That's changing as well as many of the distinctions between markets melt away. It used to be that you didn't see Unix software vendors in the MSDOS arena and MSDOSers in the Unix arena. Yet just because some of the companies in the MSDOS world are more well-known doesn't mean that the equivalent software wasn't available for Unix. ...And this phenomenon merely confirms what was said above about software being blessed by big corporations. He's right on when he talks about companies protecting themselves. They'll go with the "Big Names" who have put their stuff on OS/2. It's circular because there's already been enough said about both Unix AND OS/2 that there's been ample time for impressions already to have been formed. On Unix: "Oh yeah, it started at Bell Labs. It's kinda complex. My engineers use it in the back room." On OS/2: "I hear that it's the successor to MSDOS. Whew! Just in time, too! It was getting so that I just couldn't have all those programs running at once that I wanted to. Sidekick and all the others. I'll be able to have all that memory, and the '386, too! I'm sure glad that Microsoft and IBM teamed up to do this." > >Developers are a whole different story; they don't need compatibility > > > >For development, then, UNIX seems to be the OS of choice, mostly because > > Yup!!! Just don't confuse your needs with those of Joe User. Unfornately, > most people don't make that distinction. You really have to force yourself > to think that way. I second that motion! > > > >words of Marie Antoinette, "Let them eat cake." > > Ur, Mme. Antoinette met a very untimely end. Rather, why not quote the > founder of Mama Leone, a famous Italian restaurant in New York City. She > supposedly said something like, "Cook good food and give people plenty. > They'll come." Hmmm.... Seems like we need to talk to McDonald's or Burger King about this! (Does Mama Leone have any restaurants in Chicago?) > > >- Tim Iverson > > Philip Burton burton@parcvax.COM ...!hplabs!parcvax!burton I work for Wang Labs as a support person, and I see many customers. We sell stuff from PCs to 250-user systems. There are customers who are, let's say uh... "novice" (translate to "barely know their name") to those who are sophisticated enough to dig out and use those "undocumented" system services in our operating systems. Let's face it, there is certainly a continuum of users out there, from "dumb" Joe User to "smart" Joseph User. Typically, as the users' sophistication grows, their computing requirements do too as they use the machine for more and more work that they either move from manual systems or design because they want to remain competitive in their business. Given these conditions, there are surely users that should stay with something like MSDOS because that's where they're at (now). There are users that should be running their applications on a larger machine because that's where THEY'RE at. Trying to say that one OS is better than another is foolish in this context. Selling OS/2 qua OS/2 will merely take advantage of some users' inexperience and gullibility when they didn't need OS/2 at all. This is more likely than their buying Unix unnecessarily because of the faddishness of OS/2. (A tip for eager salespeople: Get a prospect list containing only those people who bought pet rocks. Your job will be a *lot* easier). What do *I* prefer? Well, I happen to like Unix. I personally believe that the world needs another commercial OS like I need another hole in the head. OS/2 is sufficiently different from both MSDOS and Unix that it's neither fish nor fowl, and I fear that trying to make it swim OR fly will not work out well. [I will be careful NOT to be snide and mention the "teaching the pig to sing" joke]. With its being compatible with neither and offering no growth path, I would be careful about it. Now, if I were buying a package from a Lotus or Ashton-Tate (who presumabably want to make their software as ubiquitious as possible) I would be less concerned, as they would have a version of their product on whatever OS I'm gonna run. (Of course, I also bought a VW Rabbit in its first model year, too). Then again, IBM has been successful with its S/3-(34-36)-38 product lines, all of which are mutually incompatible and have no growth path, and this despite the technical superiority of our own boxes. <-- (Sorry, my boss says we need the sales :-)) [And don't tell me about Silverlake; the users who bought the 34 and 36 and 38 didn't know for certain that it'd be happening. The path was, and still is until they bring out the new machine, the 43xx or 9370]. Maybe the market doesn't really care about crossing bridges until they crumble beneath their feet... Dave Madsen ---dcm ihnp4!vijit!madsen or vijit!madsen@gargoyle.uchicago.edu Experience is a teacher, but here's what makes me burn: She's always teaching me the things that I do not care to learn! --- Author Unknown As usual, my opinions are my own, but, of course, so self-evidently true that only people with the sensibility of a grapefruit would doubt them. (Maybe I should say "tongue-in-cheek" here?)