From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.x will loose its battle against NT if .....
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 04:49:59 GMT

In <1992Oct9.003603.1793@news.Hawaii.Edu> lkan@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Linus Kan) writes:

>Anyone out there believes that NT would sell for about $500?

Yes.  Seems like a pretty decent price for a file server, actually.

>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.

That's preposterous.  Why on earth would Microsoft try to persuade
people to buy the competitions' products?  Or did you not hear the news?
Microsoft doesn't make or support OS/2 any more.  OS/2 2.0 is an IBM
product.  MS is competing with IBM.  They had a little falling out, and
are no longer on such friendly terms as they once were.

Given this, and given that MS has announced that NT will retail for
"less than $500", I suspect that NT will retail for nearly (but still
less than) $500.  If it were to be substantially less, MS would have
announced that in the hopes of halting OS/2 2.0 sales.  They've done
nearly everything else they can think of to halt OS/2 sales.  After all,
if someone buys OS/2 from IBM, they might find it satisfactory, and
never ever buy another MS OS.

NT is not targeted at the desktop.  In the file-server market, $500 is a
very competitive price.  MS wants everyone to get their new Win32 and
Win32s products for the desktop, and maybe Win for Workgroups.  

>I'm sure the first release of NT would have less BUGS than OS/2 2.0.

It's a theory.  Not a very likely one, but it is a theory.  :-)

>I've had my share of bugs with OS/2!

And chances are that NT will have its share of bugs as well.  It's a
funny thing about software--new software tends to have bugs.  Despite
the best intentions, even the best programmers create bugs.  By the time
NT is released, IBM will have had a lot of time to clean up the bugs in
OS/2, and possibly to add new features.

>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.

Microsoft already has a powerful campaign against OS/2.  Where have you
been the last year or so?  As for NT killing OS/2, this is a hotly
debated topic.  For now, lets just say that there is reason for doubt.

One major point to consider:  MS has announced that NT will only support
"the top 100 DOS apps".  OS/2 will run almost all DOS apps.  For people
who don't want to throw out all of their existing software, this makes
OS/2 seem much more appealing than NT.  Also, the NT release date keeps
slipping.  Which:

A.  Gives IBM more time to fix and improve OS/2.
B.  Gives users more incentive to get OS/2, since it is available now,
    which in turn:
C.  Gives vendors more incentive to develop OS/2-based apps, which:
D.  Gives users more incentive to get OS/2 to run these nifty new apps.

The jury is still out, but I'd say that OS/2 has more than a fighting
chance to survive well into the next decade.  And a good thing too, even
for the NT fans.  Competition can only be good for us, the end users.
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.sys.intel,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware