From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Zachaman and NT and OS/2
Date: 12 Sep 92 21:03:27 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Sep11.225309.5208@gw.wmich.edu>, x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:
>>
>> Ok, so Zachmann doesn't think the beta is any good.  Sturgill thinks it
>> is.  I'll reserve judgement at this point.  In any case, what they have
>> is a beta.  Claiming that it is a "pre-beta" is pure silliness.  Typical
>> marketing department silliness.  Lets go on to something worth
>> discussing.
>
>       What is really at the heart of these discussions is the
>underlying war of whether NT is going to crsh OS/2 in the next two
>years or whether NT will simply become a piece of obscure history
>in the face of OS2 surprisinly fast acceptance.

I'm not so sure that this is the issue.  Had they been released at the same
time, (and assuming that NT would have been reasonably close to its intended
specs) it probably wouldn't have been much of a contest.  However that isn't
the way things work.  OS/2 got a badly needed head start and is doing quite
well by now.  Granted it has its share of problems, but then so does every
system. (including NT)  I think that because of this head start, it is not a
question of whether one system will crush the other.  It looks as if they will
both do quite well because their intended markets will not overlap a great
deal initially.  This means that both are likely to get good sized user bases
and exist quite well.  Of course this assumes that IBM doesn't go sticking its
head in the sand again and that MS doesn't screw something big up, but I shall
be optimistic a assume that this is not the most likely of circumstances.  I
don't think either system will become an obscure part of history because both
companies have too much at stake in this, and the companies in question are
simply not likely to cry uncle over this.

>       NT beta users remind me of myself when I purchased a sound blaster
>.  I thought the sound out of those MOD files that are out for it sounded
>"Just like the real thing" but I was deluding myself.  I thought they
>did sound like it but I just wasn't doing enough critical thinking.  NT
>beta usrs are doing much the same thing.  It is September and NT is
>not looking good right now.

I think it is looking OK, (not great, but not bad either) at this point
considering the level of development it is at.  But you are right it isn't the
"real thing" yet.  (Any similarity to a Pepsi commercial is purely
coincidental)

> MS did OS/2 a favor by releasing NT so
>early.

Agreed.
>  Many developers I have spoken with and have also used the NT
>beta have seriously reconsidered developing for it because Microsoft
>deceived them into thinking that NT was EVOLVING from Windows 3.1 not
>a REVOLUTION.  But the fact is, NT is not the natural path from Windows
>3.1.  It is just as much of a hardship to make Windows run on it as
>it is for OS/2 and OS/2 has the advantage of being an Intel only OS
>right now and it can just plot the Windows code with some modifications
>right in the OS.  NT idealy wants to EMULATE windows so that users
>on Dec Alpha based systems, Sparc Stations, etc, will be able to plop
>in a Windows program and run it.  The NT beta is not good.  It has
>more serious flaws than just not running 16 bit windows stuff.  It
>does not run DOS acceptibly.

Well, if developers though it was an evolution, they weren't looking any
farther than the title.  Windows NT is really quite removed from Win 3.1.
Personally, I regard that as a good trait and the farther the base of NT gets
from it the better.  Win 3.1 is really a GUI with some fancy memory management
on top of an obsolete OS.  Both NT and OS/2 are caught in a classic catch-22
on this,  If they support Windows stuff, they loose time on mre advanced
features and in some cases have to compromise the system's capabilities if
they want to get a full implementation due to the somewhat hackish nature of
Windows.  I think that the folks at MS may have outsmarted themselves a little
on this.  Unfortunately it is necissary if one wishes to have a lot of impact
right now in the PC market.  How MS is going to deal with this problem, will
be quite interesting to watch.

>       Developers have to ask themselves, what is the compelling
>reason to write for NT?  It doesn't run Windows they way they thought
>and OS/2 is here and does about everything NT is uspposed to do and
>they KNOW it runs windows quite well and DOS beautifully. (Not that
>OS/2 is without faults, I have spent many hours ragging on OS/2 2.0's
>problems but NT clearly has more).

Well, there are far more reasons to write for NT than just Windows stuff,
particularly when it comes to workstation class machines.  Also, OS/2 doesn't
do everything NT is supposed to, but then to this point it isn't supposed to
either.  On the other hand, NT isn't going to live up to every claim that MS
is making about it either.  (I'm sorry if that dissapoints the NT supporters
out there, but it isn't going to be the utopia MS seems to be promising)  How
many faults NT will eventually have, who can say?  We can't judge the final
version by the current one, and MS still has a LOT of work ahead of them on
this project.

>       Zachaman is of course too biased to be taken seriously anymore.
>His other article of thise type "OS/2 is a winner!" made me blush
>with embarrassment.  He statements that Windows 3.1 was a disaster
>were simply not true.  Windows 3.1 is very nice and I can't blame anyone
>for using it (if they don't have 8 megs of ram or more).  It is fast,
>crash resistant, has sound support and driver support and is more
>than enough for the typical user.   This article now is like that other
>one but a bit closer to the truth but still quite biased.  Afterall,
>I don't remember seeing him rip IBM for releasing the limited
>availability version of OS/2 2.0 last December that I bought for
>$100 and sat on my hard drive as a rather large Disk utility (look,
>I can format disks in the background!) so the bias is there without
>a doubt.

Agreed.

>       Anyway, to conclude my long winded post, Zachaman is
>very biased no doubt about it.  But NT is not looking good right now
>and OS/2 is gaining a lot of support and a lot of that support is
>due to MS's mistake of realsing NT in July.  It is already too late
>to expect OS/2 to simply die anytime soon.  over a million sold
>by late August and according to Infoworld nearing 2 million shipped
>(NOT sold, big difference).  And it is in the top 15 best selling
>programs at RETAIL which most sales are via IBM directly from the
>zillions of ads in Newsweek, etc.
>       anyway, that's my two cents.
>
I do think it was a marketing mistake to release it this early.  All we can
hope for is that long term, it results in a a better product for us end users.
I don't think there can be any arguement about that, I certaintly hope that
this becomes a continuing trend.

Stacy John Behrens
*===)-------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy