From: brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: NT delayed again??? (PC Week Nov 2)
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 20:06:21 GMT

In article <hatton.721472874@cgl.ucsf.edu> hatton@socrates.ucsf.edu (Tom Hatton) writes:
>brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>In article <hatton.720949698@cgl.ucsf.edu> hatton@socrates.ucsf.edu (Tom Hatton) writes:
>>>Not having a subscription, perhaps someone else can confirm this (probably
>>>not Brian, of course, since he seems loathe to post articles that might
>>>be interpreted as anti-MS, to date) - I thought I saw, passing by an
>
>>That's a ridiculous assertion.  In fact I was one of the first, if not THE
>>first to post that NT would be delayed (actually I seem to remember one person
>>beat me to it).
>
>Well, it seems to me you listed several publications you have subscriptions
>to, and they have had articles concerning pertinent topics that you have
>omitted, including info that casts MS in a less than favourable light.

Postings such as this one is precisely why I no longer do tidbits for
the os2.advocacy group any more.

> 
>Small example - you claimed that the upcoming Unix OS releases would be 
>contenders against OS/2; in the Oct 12 InfoWorld, they cite Univel as
>giving end-user pricing for UnixWare: single-user version, $495. But, 
>nice gotcha, if you want Windows emulation (part of OS/2) it's a separate
>module - price $995. I don't remember you quoting the $1500 UnixWare 
>price at any time since then. Could it be because the pricing clearly 
>makes UnixWare *not* a contender?

I saw this go by, and yes it is important, but 1) the pricing is not firm.
2) It is relevant, but not strictly NT vs OS/2. 3) Came out the week before
I was to attend the OS/2 conference... I was pushing very hard to meet
a milestone on the project I work on before leaving for the conference.
As a matter fact the tidbits issue that week started out as follows:
"This set of Tidbits is very short, as I have no time, but there's
some important news."  Basically it was all I could do to get what
I did get there, typed-in.

> 
>Plus articles on the FTC investigation of MS - I don't remember seeing

The FTC investigation was pointed out by several people on this group,
and they had quoted entire articles.  There have been articles since, but
they are rehashes.  The last InfoWorld had one, but at the end of it
they make it quite clear that all the things they listed were unsubstatiated
charges they had dug up talking to vendors that had complaints.
Basically there has been no news... the FTC will not comment until the
investigation is finished.  Finally just what does this investigation
have to do with the merits of OS/2 vs NT anyway?
Certainly IBM has been investigated by the FTC many more times than
Microsoft, and unlike Microsoft, IBM has been found to be in violation.

Actually my understanding is that the scope of the investigation is whether
or not IBM _and_ Microsoft violated anti-trust laws in their handling of OS/2.
There has been some speculation that this has been broadened to look into
the "undocumented calls" episode, but I've never seen an article say
that the FTC says that this is the case.
Regardless I don't find it particularly interesting... the "worst" that is
likely to come out of this is that the MS OS and App people will be put
in separate divisions.  As it's clear from the undocumented calls episiode
that no real benefits are being obtained I doubt that there will be
a significant difference in MS even if that happens.

>you post about that; criticism of MS about ODBC and non-Windows software,

What is ODBC?  I don't understand what this one is about.

>etc. You seem to be a tad selective in the "tidbits" you put up. And 
>caliming to be first on the delay of NT - ok, but I think you knew there
>would be a flurry of postings on that, so yours would have reduced 
>impact. Hardly balances the scoresheet.

There are several points.  I have never claimed to be "balanced", the
articles I pick are ones that meet my personal opinion as being
newsworthy.  I picked the NT delay one because to me it IS NEWSWORTHY.
It is imporant to know approximately when NT will come out.  To say that
I put it there because I knew others would is silly... do you think I
type this stuff in for fun?

A small part of my job entails keeping up on the trade rag world.  I
read and then select various articles I believe are important to the
group I work for.  I also pass this information to various friends
and keep it around to "grep" when I need such information. It
became apparent to me, already doing all that work, that if I
slightly broadened my collection I'd have items of interest to the OS/2
and Windows advocates, thus I did so, and Tidbits was born.  However
various (and fairly numerous) members of the OS/2 advocacy crowd seem
to think I'm their personal research slave, and that also I'm
super-human, and never miss anything in the trade rags, and that I
always have time to type everything in.  In the end I got tired of the
abuse, and thus recently announced I'd no longer provide this service
for the OS/2 crowd and was moving the bulk of my efforts the windows
advocacy group (where my efforts seem to be appreciated).

I agree that my selection is weighted toward Windows... I have been
quite open about the fact that I'm biased towards Windows... not
surprisingly I find more Windows articles of interest.  What I resent
it the implication (or in many instances it's said outright) that if it
is bad for Microsoft or good for IBM that I leave it out...  this is
simply not the case. In fact, I have gone out of my way to search for
good things about OS/2.  What really kills me is that some of the
people that claim I leave stuff out, haven't bothered to make the
information available to others.  Here you are pointing out 3 articles,
that to you seem important -- and what do you do?  type them in? or
bitch because I didn't type them in?

If anybody is being "selective" here, it's OS/2 advocates. Yes, I've left
out things that are bad for MS or good for IBM.  But I've also left out
things that are bad for IBM or good for MS.  Was I balanced?  No, probably
not, but neither was I all that unbalanced.  And it's not like there
aren't plenty of OS/2 advocates out there that could "keep me honest" if
they so chose.  But instead of "helping" by adding the ones I left
out, they instead chose to yell at me.

Ingratitude I could put up with, but when people start blantantly
criticizing me for providing such a service... well they can just go
read it for themselves.

>
>Tom

Brian
(For those interested, I am still doing the Tidbits stuff, but only
from a Windows viewpoint... these are posted in comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy.)
-- 
C. Brian Sturgill                   I strongly encourage you to mail your copy
University of Utah                     of Ross Perot's:  "United We Stand
Center for Software Science            How we can take back our country",
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373        to President-elect Clinton.