From: kjb@calmasd.prime.com (Ken Brucker)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: re: OS/2 2.x will loose its battle against NT if ....
Date: 9 Oct 92 21:47:36 GMT
Organization: Computervision, San Diego

In article <1992Oct9.003603.1793@news.Hawaii.Edu>, lkan@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Linus Kan) writes:
> 
> o NT sells for below $199
> o NT tailored to Intel x86 platform and sells for below $99
> 
> Anyone out there believes that NT would sell for about $500?
> I don't think so--it's just a gimmick!  It's an estimated price
> so that tempted users like me would buy OS/2 because it's cheap.
> Microsoft says that--do you think they'll actually sell NT for
> that price?  Think about it--if you were a sales strategist at 
> Microsoft, how much would you suggest NT sell for  in order to 
> maintain total monopoly on Intel based OS?  $500 for NT is
> quite ridiculous--it's all just a (brillant) gimmick and a false
> 'add'.

I don't quite follow your logic.  How does it help Microsoft to get people to
go out and buy OS/2?  I'd think that they would lose some people to OS/2 that
don't want to go out and buy yet another OS, even if they do lower the price.

And how is this a brilliant gimmick?  Announce a high price and then announce a
much lower price later to gain market share?  Why not just start out saying,
we'll sell it to you for <$100?  It seems that this would be less prone to
pushing people to OS/2, a cheaper OS.

> I'm sure Microsoft is reading the OS/2 newsgroups and get user
> evaluations and problems plus tips and ideas so that they could
> improve their NT code.  And since NT and OS/2 are similar in code,
> Microsoft is learning its mistakes from the release of OS/2 2.0
> --us OS/2 users did all the test Microsoft needed for the NT kernel.
> I'm sure the first release of NT would have less BUGS than OS/2 2.0.
> I've had my share of bugs with OS/2!

As to this, OS/2 is not based on the same kernel as NT so we haven't been
debugging anything for Microsoft.  After dealing with VMS and Ultrix systems
for several years, I think IBM has done a pretty good job with the initial
release of OS/2.  However I don't think they've done a good job at getting the
fixes out quickly.  The biggest complaint I've got is having a good driver to
support SVGA and seamless windows.  But this is a whole other issue...  :)

> Well, when NT is ready for release, Microsoft would come out hard
> with a powerful campign against OS/2.  The final analysis--OS/2 2.x
> would NOT survive in the long run--unless die-hard OS/2 users
> want to be unique and sway away from the mainstream, ie. Windows.

There is room for more than a single OS on the PCs.  The market is big enough
and NT isn't going be the end-all-be-all answer for all PC uses.  Some are
going to stay with DOS, others DOS/Windows, some on OS/2 and some will move to
NT.  In part the hardware is going to determine which OS people run. 
Especially on the older systems.

Even Microsoft is saying that NT is targeted at the high end PC user.  This
means someone who can spend some $$$ on a system with enough memory and a fast
processor that will support NT comfortably.

There's more than one OS in the mini and mainframe market place.  Why can't the
same be true for PCs?  And I like having the availability of several OSes.  It
helps to keep the development pushing forward and provides me, the end user,
the ability to select an OS that will best fill my needs.  This could mean NT,
or it could mean OS/2.  Today it's OS/2.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**  Ken Brucker -- VMS/Ultrix Systems Programmer/Mangler -- Computer Vision
 **  kjb@calmasd.Prime.COM  
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Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy