From: philip@utstat.uucp (Philip McDunnough)
Subject: Re: 4000: Is it so great?
Organization: University of Toronto, Dept. of Statistics
Date: Sat, 26 Sep 1992 21:26:48 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.152848.5549@cs.mcgill.ca> jerry@cs.mcgill.ca (Gerald (Jerry) KUCH) writes:

[ ]
>
>Is NT being evaluated at your site yet?  It ought to get reasonably nice
>reviews, from what I've seen of it.

Of course we have copies. NT is not a product yet. OS/2 version 2.0 is. Our
support people don't give reviews of products under construction (at least
publicly). I can simply tell you that a number of very interesting programs
are being moved to OS/2 version 2.0 . One in particular is Scientific Word.
At the moment it runs under Windows. The OS/2 version will appear next 
summer. It  takes time to move products over.
>
>>will be a blessed day when I haven't got anything from Microsoft left on
>>my hard drive. It's only a matter of time before OS 2.1 will deliver me
>>from a company that has yet to produce anything interesting and whose
>>founder managed to mangle the main intent of Basic.
>
>That fact that Windows 3.1 and OS/2 (any version) don't even seem to have the
>same design goals in terms of features and comprehensiveness hasn't stopped
>most people from making half-baked comparisons of them.  Justice aside, though,
>OS/2's sales sound like they've been very lukewarm, and according to some of
>the stats that I saw, a lot of sites are still running OS/2 1.2 in network
>environments out of fear that too many things will break when they upgrade to
>2.0.  I don't know how justified the fears are.

OS/2 sales haven't been bad, considering that they still have trouble with 
sound (Wing Commander, for example is difficult- not impossible- to get sound
out of). Once they can run Windows 3.1 I'll see no need for DOS and/or
Windows. They have a really nice version of TCP/IP and NFS. You might want
to compare these to the DOS/Windows' versions. IBM has its act together when
it comes to networking for our purposes. All I know is getting a simple
Appletalk network to work with DOS/Windows cost me too much time dealing 
with interrupts, QEMM, etc...
 
Noone serious compares Windows and OS/2 version 2.0 .
>
>>The OS/2 version 2.0 beta testing was extremely open. IBM is changing rapidly,
>>and at least it doesn't come out with "standards" such as MPC.
>
>What's wrong with coming out with standards?  Do you have particular gripes
>about the MPC standard, or is the very notion of MS participating in the
>drafting of a standard offensive to you?

I happen too have had (and have) an MPC. To put it bluntly: they aren't worth
the price of a CD. Try listening to Mixed up Mother Goose under Windows (the
CD version say on Creative Labs' MPC upgrade), or King's Quest V.
 
Standards are fine. What I'm saying is that the MPC standard is a bit lacking.
CDTV is way better (except for the colours), but isn't catching on as much.
>
>>Yes, NeXTSTep is indeed interesting and I love it on my NeXT. However, it's
>>far too expensive for a personal computer. The next standard for PC's will
>>be coming from IBM, with contributions from Apple. If there's any justice in
>>the world Microsoft will simply fade away.
>
>I agree... it probably will be too costly and out of the mainstream to catch
>on with PCs in a very big way.  I wonder what will come of the rumors (or
>have they been confirmed) that NeXT will ship NeXTStep 486 with their own
>graphics card to avoid having to take the rap of being a "slow, bloated OS"
>when the real blame would have been falling on shitty PC display cards.

NeXT just made a very big sale to Chrysler of NS PC. I'm not sure what will
come of it all. Heck of a lot better than anything that's ever come out of 
Microsoft.
>
>>>P.S. It wasn't Microsoft that lost BILLIONS of dollars last fiscal year.
>>>Now who's loosing money? It's not Microsoft that has to GIVE AWAY their
>>>OS in order to get people to use it.
>>
>>What a joke. Windows comes bundled with every dog and cat in the world.
>>I myself have 3 copies, which came free with the computer and various
>>"multimedia" products.
>
>So that's how they shipped 3 million copies in 6 weeks? :-)  Seriously 
>though, all of the OEM and bundling agreements, jocularity aside, are making
>Microsoft piles of money, whether those products get used or not.

Microsoft is making money, but that wasn't the issue. Ian's claim was that
IBM had to give away their OS. I'd say it's the opposite.
 
Philip McDunnough
philip@utstat.toronto.edu