From: sjb5@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (STACY JOHN BEHRENS)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: os2 attitudes
Date: 29 Sep 92 18:18:06 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

In article <1992Sep27.031415.20002@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>, rda758g@monu6.cc.mon
ash.edu.au (A.J. Kleinert) writes:
>Firstly; OS/2 v2 is great, it's wonderful, I love it!
>
>Secondly: I need another disk drive, and in my travels I asked a local
>  (popular) computer dealer (who will remain nameless) about how his OS/2
>  sales were.  He responded by saying that he had no stocks left although
>  it wasn't because it was popular, but that he was discouraging people
>  from buying it because a lot that were buying it were returning it
>  a short time later (disgruntled) and complaining about performance
>  problems.  He said that as far as he understood (and was conveying
>  onto his customers) don't even contemplate OS/2 v2 as an option unless
>  you're purchasing a 486DX/50 machine with about 32 MByte of RAM (ARGH!).

This is probably because most computer sales types I know, know less than
nothing about OS/2.  Many simply have no idea of its capabilities.  Thus if
someone considers it for his/her system that person can't solve any problems
or answer any questions.  I don't feel like getting into the blame game here
so I will not attempt to claim that any particular party is to blame for this.
 Frankly it probably is everyone's fault.

>  Perhaps OS2 would benefit if IBM started a dealer education program?

Not a bad idea.
>
  (In my darker days of computer sales I was often frustrated by the
>  lack of product information training organised by suppliers - and the
>  very few who did dabble in dealer training chose to treat it more as
>  propoganda/brainwashing exercise.)  I pointed out to this dealer that
>  I only have a 486SX/20 with 5 Meg and I'm very happy with the speed of
>  OS/2 (although I'm sure I'll be happier when I upgrade to 8 Meg) and
>  that OS/2 is highly configurable so that the user can customise
>  operation to their needs.  He replied that to put things in perspective
>  OS/2 was just an operating system - a means for users to run their
>  applications.  Most of his customers used their computer for a
>  specific purpose (ie: word processing, spreadsheeting, games, etc)
>  and would not benefit from multitasking, nor would they want to
>  fiddle with the operating system to get their application to run
>  the way DOS would have had it run in the first place.
>
This is marketing talking.  People only buy things this way if they believe
that this is the only or best way to do something.  Frequently when mass
market consumers buy a system, they are depending on the sales folks to sell
them the right thing.  They rarely take the time to make an informed desicion
as to what brand hardware to buy, much less what OS.  In addition, users will
have to fiddle with DOS about as much as OS/2 if they wan't to get anything
out of it.  DOS has no advantage there.



>Thirdly: Given the delays of NT / delays of getting software to market,
>  exactly what goes into operating system development for OS/2 or NT?
>  If a team of programmers would produce NT in 3 years (pulling a number
>  out of the air) and the marketing guys say "No, it has to go to
>  market in 2 years" (pulling another number out of the air) what is
>  the case of not just doubling the number of programmers and adding
>  a few extra for unexpected delays?  Is it an economic thing?  (ie:
>  the cost of writing the software would not make it economically viable)
>  Is it that there isn't the management/programming/productivity tools
>  around for co-ordinating such a large collection of programmers
>  efficiently?  Where is the bottleneck?

Simply throwing more programmers at a job often confuses the people working on
the project.  Remember that all big projects today are group efforts.
Sometimes more people can help, but often that would end up costing more in
confusion than the extra programmers could help.  Marketing doesn't always get
the last say.  Sometimes a project simply can't be finished adequately by
their often ill informed ideas about when it should be.
>
>Andrew Kleinert
>rda758g@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au
>

Stacy John Behrens
*===)-------------