From: brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: nt goes "late beta" i
Date: 23 Aug 92 12:37:13 MDT
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Distribution: comp

In article <1992Aug23.2712.4133@dosgate> "stephen dawson" <stephen.dawson@canrem.com> writes:
>brian%jaguar.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)  writes
>
>BS>1) Microsoft has bet the company on NT succeeding, it's clear that doesn't
>BS>hold true for IBM as a whole.
>
>It seems that Microsoft has taken many of their resources off other
>projects to get NT complete ASAP. It is far from clear that this can
>do any good. Adding another body to a programming team may actually
>slow things dowm.
They explained the team structure clearly at the NT developers conference...
it went something like this:
Intial design team 10, initial coding team 50, current team 200 + docuemntation
and other auxiliary support.
Seem rational to me.  I imagine that they have since pulled more people
in for testing... bug tracing, etc.

>
>MS has never released anything on time. I would be very surprised if
>the NT sessions, and announcements are an attempt to by time by
>slowing the shift to OS/2.
True... Surprising?  No.

>
>BS>2) I already see plenty of developers headed for NT, I don't and didn't see
>BS>that for OS/2 2.0.
>
>Lotus, WordPerfect and Coral are fully committed.
Also to NT and Unix and DOS and... for example I've already used an NT
version of Corel Draw.

>
>The key to the success of OS/2, however, is whether it is used for
>in-house development. OS/2 is winning this war (see regular reports
>in PC Week- ALL the big banks in Canada are going to OS/2).
I also see people headed the other way... why is it surprising that
BigBlue customers are using OS/2?

...
>There is also the client work station and home user. NT will not fit
>into either.
Why do you say this?
I will use it at home and at work.. Several Engineering professors I know
are intending to replace their Unix boxes with NT ones.

>
>It is difficult to identify where, as few as 1 million units of NT
>will be run.
Snicker... would you like to put some money on this?
If this were true, why does SGI already have a machine shipping NOW with
NT on it (for developers of course).  Hell, NT already has 10,000 developer
copies shipped already. I.E. in only one month NT has shipped 1% of OS/2's
total for 4 months, and it's not even in beta.

>
>BS>3) IBM has dumped a ton of money into OS/2 1.X and 2.0, and they unfortuately
>BS>insist on viewing that as a single expense.  They seem very reluctant
>BS>to do the things necessary for success, like make MM a part of the OS/2
>BS>base package.  Because OS/2 2.0 (later) comes with Windows 3.1 MM extensions
>BS>and users have to pay $149 for OS/2 MM extentions... who in their right
>
>Isn't the Windows MME an optional addition, at extra cost? Even if
>included, they suffer from a lack of multi-processing. The OS/2 MME
>are far superior.
No, it's a part of Windows 3.1 and NT.
OS/2's multi-TASKING is not superior to NT's.

>
>BS>mind would develop for the OS/2 ones?  Likewise, IBM overcharges for
>BS>development literature, their C compiler (even at $295 it's overpriced), etc.
>
>$295 is overpriced????? No way. I suspect you have not used it.
I've ported/developed over 100,000 lines of code using that idiot compiler...
why do you think I'm so mad?  I'm was in the game early and had to
pay $700 for that pile of junk.  (Actually, it's an adequate non-professional
level C compiler.)
Subsequent postings from others seem to imply that other compilers for OS/2
are selling at outrageous prices under OS/2 too.  Were it not for the
availability of GNU CC under OS/2... OS/2 would have very little
shareware/freeware.  Fortunately for IBM, their fans have bailed them out.

Truely... Workset/2 is barely more that what you get with Turbo C++, which
lists for $99 in the DOS world.
Where's its C++, assembler, hard-copy documents, working optimizer (it
attempts professional-level optimization, but its very buggy, this
does seem to be being fixed), source profiler, etc?  The debugger is OK, the
workframe itself hard to use.  Other than the attempt at professional-level
optimization, I see no benefit over what comes with Turbo C++, and Turbo
C++ DOES come with C++.

Do people like arguing with me because I don't bow and scrap before OS/2, or
is there something in that package I'm missing?  I'd gladly find out I've just
overlooked the profiler, and that the programming documents were accidently
omitted from my copy.

BTW... that $295 price expires September 5th.  Then it goes back up to
$895 list.
...

Brian