From: hochstae@allfiwib1.wiwi.uni-marburg.de (Christoph H. Hochstaetter)
Subject: Why OS/2 will DEFINITELY fail
News-Software: IBM OS/2 PM RN (NR/2) v0.16 by O. Vishnepolsky and R. Rogers
Reply-To: hochstae@allfiwib1.wiwi.uni-marburg.de (Christoph H. Hochstaetter)
Organization: Techn. Univ. Clausthal
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 03:26:48 GMT

In <1992Dec11.191116.90161@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu> sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS) writes:
>Actually OS/2 seems to be selling pretty well.  Around thanksgiving I went
>around to several Cleveland area computer stores, including 2 superstores and
>informaly asked how OS/2 had been selling recently.  Invariably they said it
>was selling pretty well.  Not a barn burner by any means, but it was selling
>at a decent clip.  (Unfortunately I could not get any sales figures so these
>were only general impressions of sales types)

OS/2 has been sold over 1M, but Windows 3.1 is selling over 1M per month.

>>       Corel 2.5--Corel 2.5 is roughly equivelent to the 2.0/2.1
>>       version that was for Windows, but with the goodies (Chart..)
>>       that came with 3.0.  Unfortunately, these goodies are all
>>       *Windows* applications, and Corel has said in at least three
>>       seperate comments to the media that they will *not* be porting
>>       3.0 to OS/2.  This makes buying the OS/2 version silly,
>>       because it has no future.
>>
>What is this nonsense about "has no future"?  The company has announced that
>they are skipping version 3 and going strait to version 4 for OS/2.  Their
>stated reason for doing so is that they wish to avoid the further delays that
>would be caused by releasing another version in between.  This does NOT mean
>that they have no future plans on the OS/2 platform.

Come on. What do you think for what OS Corel will develop Version 4 first?
Windows 3.1 or OS/2 2.0. Windows of course, because they still will sell
more copies for Windows. Version 4 will not be out before 94. So it takes
additional time to port it to OS/2 2.0. Porting to Windows NT is quite
easy. It takes a couple of days.

Corel also could develop for WIN32s. So their software will run under Windows
3.1 and Windows NT and both in 32-bit. So, do you really think, that they
will develop for OS/2 2.0.

My guess about this hybrid 2.5 version is, that they started developing
it a long time ago, when NT was not discussed and now they finished it.

Microsoft is doing the right thing here. They tell the ISVs, go writing
WIN32s apps. They will run under WIN32s (which can be redistributed free)
and Windows NT. So, who would seriously write apps for OS/2, which always
hasn't been a good seller.

>In most cases security is rather pointless unless it is a multiuser system.  I
>certainly don't need to be logging on to my own PC.

You are lucky, you have your own PC. Many people have to share their PCs
with others and there may be some confidental data on it.

>Besides there are
>security products availlable.  (granted they aren't great, but they will keep
>most rif-raff off the machine)

Yes, like this stupid restricted shell for OS/2 2.0. These "security" products
can be easily broken into. People think, they have a secure machine, but
actually everybody can do anything. This can be very dangerous!

>Also tell me honestly, do you *really need*
>Unicode.

If we all were in the US and we all would speak English only, there is
no need for Unicode, but the world is bigger than the USA.

>Granted OS/2 should have it, (and probably will someday) but I don't
>know too many people who when investigating a system the first (or even tenth)
>thing out of their mouth is, "Does it support Unicode?"  Heck it is amazing
>how many people are unaware that Unicode exists.  Also, I challenge you to
>walk into a store and buy a single NT application.  I have seen OS/2 apps in
>stores.

Right, they are in stores, because no one wants to buy them.

>Granted, very few, but they are availlable.

Agreed!

>The same cannot be said
>about NT.  Right now there simply isn't a choice.

When OS/half 2.0 was in beta, there weren't any apps. But take a look
at the announcements of many companies, e.g. Borland, they promised to
have their C++ ready <12 weeks after the release date of NT. I wonder,
if their C++ Compiler for OS/2 will be out then.

Don't tell me about any announcements of OS/2 apps. OS/2 2.0 is out 8
month now and there are still announcements only. This is worth really
nothing. "We hereby proudly announce to have a stone-aged version of our
foobar product for OS/2 2.0 sometime in the future".
What shall anyone say to this?

Christoph
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