From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Date: 14 Sep 92 02:18:58 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

In <1992Sep13.212117.5220@gw.wmich.edu> x90wardell@gw.wmich.edu writes:

>	Well in my own rather biased opinion, I see things like this:

>If NT ships in December and is not a disaster, then OS/2 is rather doomed.

Why?  With over a million users already?  And even if NT came out today,
all that would happen is that people would see that OS/2 costs $150, NT
costs $500.  OS/2 is competing with DOS+Windoze, rather more than it is
with NT (especially at the moment :-)).

Now, if someone wants to run *both* Lan Manager and TCP/IP, they'll
probably find NT to be a good bargain.  If they only want to run ONE of
those, they'll find OS/2 to be less expensive.  It may be nice to have
options, but most people simply won't care.

>Plain and simple.  IBM is and has been rather incompetent in the handling
>of OS/2 thus far and even though they have cleaned up their act some,
>they could never stop the MS marketting machine.  

This is certainly *possible*, but I think it's far from certain.  NT is
too expensive for a home system, and possibly too expensive for a
desktop.  I agree that if NT releases by the end of the year, it may
have some impact on OS/2, but I seriously doubt that it will kill it. 
Any more than OS/2 has managed to kill DOS.  I still think about going
back to DESQview at times, myself.

>If NT ships 1Q93 it will be a lot closer.  Borland C++ for OS/2 will
>have been rleased

I seriously doubt if this is going to make any difference in OS/2 sales
one way or the other.  Most users don't have, and don't want, a C
compiler.  They want a word processor, and possibly, a spreadsheet.  And
perhaps, a database.  And maybe some video games.

>, Stacker for OS/2 will be out and the Word Perfect,
>Corel Draw, and Lotus apps will all be in 2.0 format (32 bit).  These

OC, these will come out no matter when NT ships.  The only real question
I see is which platform will they ship for first?  Unless the NT
versions ship first, OS/2 is likely to retain a good standing in the
marketplace.  Especially if it still costs 1/4 what NT does.  And
especially if NT "requires" 8 meg, the way that OS/2 "requires" 4.

Personally, I don't really care.  If OS/2 dies, I'll go back to
DESQview.  There's still several orders of magnitude more DOS apps than
there are any other type of apps, and, like it or not, DOS will be with
us for at least a few more years.  I'll re-evaluate come 1996 or so,
when DOS+QEMM+djgpp+DV/X finally becomes inadequate.

>Anyway, this also assumes that NT is released with all its goodies
>intact and actully runs DOS and Windows programs reasonably.

This is likely to be the killer.  Just how well *does* NT run DOS apps? 
After a decade at the top of the heap, DOS is something that has to be
co-existed with, no matter how painful that co-existence is.

People like Brian Sturgill may be able to recompile all their UNIX apps
to run under NT, and be perfectly happy.  The majority of DOS users will
not consider this a viable option.  DOS-compatibility is likely to be
the true key to the relative successes of OS/2 and NT.

But personally, I think that OS/2 is going to continue to compete with
DOS+Windoze, and I don't think that NT is going to have a huge effect on
that.  Some effect, yes, but not as much as MS probably hopes.  NT and
Windoze may create a squeeze-play effect that might endanger OS/2's
future, but I think that it's silly to think that NT will do it alone. 
(And, OC, if DOS+Windoze+NT wins, DOS will be with us for even more
years, and I'll be happily running DESQview under it....)  :-)
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!