Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!emcard!stiatl!pda
From: pda@stiatl.UUCP (Paul Anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: OSF/NeXT and X Windows
Message-ID: <3434@stiatl.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 89 19:15:07 GMT
References: <14.24074304@laconn.fidonet.org>
Reply-To: pda@stiatl.UUCP (Paul Anderson)
Organization: Sales Technologies Inc., Atlanta, GA
Lines: 28

In article <14.24074304@laconn.fidonet.org> gfengstad@laconn.fidonet.org (Grant Fengstad) writes:
>Forgive my ignorance, but this whole issue has me confused.  My understanding 
  [stuff about IBM product positioning and planning deleted]
>Does anyone really know what is happening????

Yes and No.  
The "Yes" is: IBM is executing its standard strategy of 20 years. It is 
confusing the marketplace while it implements as much of its 'new' arch-
itecture as possible.  This will give them a 9 month lead on the market
before competition catches up.  (They can afford to throw $10 million at
a few things just to keep up a smoke screen).

The "No" is: I sure don't know exactly what is happening, but there are 
analysts that bet their mortgage on the fact they know what IBM 
(and DEC, Apple, etc) will do next.

My opinion:  IBM still believes that a closed, proprietary architecture
that only they service and sell hardware/software support for is the 
way to go.  MSDOS is a colossal embarrassement for them.  The PS/2 line and
microchannel architecture reinforces their longstanding position on closed
architecture (why else lock it up with so many patents?).  So, I expect 
SAA to be the way they will go overall, with clumsy 3rd party interfaces 
poorly supported (such as X) or very expensive.

Paul
-- 
Paul Anderson		gatech!stiatl!pda		(404) 841-4000
	    X isn't just an adventure, X is a way of life...