From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Reply-To: sip1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 01:52:33 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.170831.1755@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>Now, networking is important.  In fact, networking is critical to most
>>businesses.  And OS/2 + *a* network is still cheaper than NT, which is
>>what I said originally.
>But that just isn't so.  The cheapest peer-to-peer networking you can get from
>IBM is TCP/IP+NFS  Cost: $195(OS/2 list price) + $200 (TCP Basekit) +
>$150 (NFS -- I just looked up the NFS price) = $545

The original assertion did not specify peer-to-peer networking.
Client/server arrangements are still far more common (and probably
will be for some time to come in most markets until administration
tools improve).  OS/2 2.0 plus the Novell NetWare Requester is $179,
for example.  List price.  (No, Brian, OS/2 2.0 does not list for
$195.  It lists for $149.  IBM is charging the highest price for a
straight up purchase of OS/2 2.0, and it is $149.  You can't pay
higher.  But even that is irrelevant, because people care about street
prices, not list prices.  In that case a straight up copy of OS/2 2.0
is about $125.  Let's be charitable and price straight up NT at $300
street.  Then figure the math.)

If NT comes in at $300 to $500 it will be substantially more expensive
than OS/2 2.0 for clients and, in all but the smallest networks (very
small), substantially more expensive overall.

NT may, however, be an attractive server platform, but that, too, is
far from guaranteed.  LAN Manager was supposed to crack Novell NetWare
-- it didn't.  NetWare holds 60%.  I'm not sure why a platform which
looks suspiciously like an upgraded LAN Manager is suddenly going to
overthrow NetWare, which itself is a moving target (and already
available on Unix, the Macintosh, and, soon, OS/2 2.0).  Of course
OS/2 2.0 on the client side and NT on the server side is certainly
plausible, so roll that into the mix if you like.

>>>(I mean DESQview has almost no applications available.)
>>Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!  ROFL!!!  Now that's good!!  That's really good!!  At
>...
>>better have been a joke.  It must have been a joke.  Surely nobody would
>>make such a statement seriously.  Would they?  Yeah, it must have been a
>...
>>enough to make a statement like that seriously.  I hope.)  :-)
>I don't get the joke.  Surely you're not counting DOS apps as DESQview
>ones?  If you are then I hope you enjoy spending you life with 640K.
>What is the point in having an advanced OS if you spend your life
>running DOS apps on it?

Desqview is a DOS multitasker (which breaks the 640K limit just as
well, if not better than, Windows 3.1 -- it supports both VCPI and
DPMI, after all).  It is sold as such, and it works well in that role.
I don't understand why this point is so difficult to grasp.  People
buy Desqview for the express purpose of running their DOS applications
better (and many people are buying OS/2 2.0 for the same reason,
incidently).  It is a fine market to participate in, since many DOS
applications are familiar, powerful, and inexpensive.  Consumers
understand this perfectly well -- they are buying Desqview in full
knowledge that there are only a handful of Desqview-specific
applications.

>Microsoft has C++.  You've not seen MSC 7.0 yet?

Does it do DLLs?  :-)  (If you read the trade press, you'll pick up on
this one.  Professional environment, indeed.  :-))

>Well I don't know what you mean by "major" but you should read the
>OS/2 programmers group... people definitely have been held up
>by the lack of C++.

Attention!  Newsflash!  There are at least THREE C++ compilers
available for OS/2 2.0 today.  There are two ports of GNU C++ and one
commercial C++ implementation from Microway.

Let's not argue a moot point, OK?

-- 
Timothy F. Sipples      | The OS/2 FREQ. ASKED QUESTIONS LIST is avail. from
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