From: GUTZ@CC49.CRL.AECL.CA
Subject: Re: PowerPC or (P5 & P6)?
Organization: AECL-Research
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 12:36:04 GMT


In article <1992Oct7.010444.4614@netcom.com> erb@netcom.com (Ebbot R. Bane) writes:
>In article <1992Oct6.161408.15202@cu23.crl.aecl.ca> gutz@cc49.crl.aecl.ca writes:
>>
>>In article <1992Oct05.190659.24067@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>>In article <1992Oct5.141621.6764@cu23.crl.aecl.ca> gutz@cc49.crl.aecl.ca writes:
>>>>In article <1992Oct01.185753.6638@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>     IBM could predict 4 million - that doesn't change the current
>>>>>facts.
>>>>
>>>>Agreed, IBM, like Microsoft, can predict that cows will fall from the sky
>>>>on Tuesday.  But the fact remains that OS/2 is selling - and probably better
>>>>than MS could have guessed.
>>>
>>>     OS/2 is indeed selling - but neither of us has any clue how well.
>>>We have some numbers from IBM, and we have some conflicting numbers
>>>from Microsoft.  Who's to say which is closer to the truth?
>>
>>How about PC Magazine?  OS/2 has been on the top 15 for a few weeks now,
>>and as I'm sure even you must be aware, PC magazine does not count
>>direct sales, which certainly amounts to a substantial chunk of total.
>
>Today I received the October 27 issue of PC Magazine.  OS/2 does not
>appear in the "Top Retail Software" chart on page 31.  This is the second
>issue in a row with OS/2 as a no-show.  So far, all the "objective" sales
>figures I have seen are consistant with a huge spike of OS/2 *shipments* 
>peaking around mid-July.  This is probably due to IBM "filling the channel"
>in one spasmodic burst of shipping crates of OS/2 out to those resellers
>gullable enough to trust IBMs sales projections.

This may indeed be so, I generally don't read a whole lot of PC anymore due
to their hailing of NT as a winning before it even enters the starting block.
Incidentally, before you go "shooting from the lip", PC also review a beta
of OS/2, which I disliked.  Reviews of Betas are of no use to me.

>
>Ok, so OS/2 is a flop.  But will NT succeeed?  Yes, for one reason: Win32s.
>
Where did you get this information?  I'm sure that OS/2 2.0 is out selling
the realease verion of NT, aren't you?

>The October release of NT (Yes, it's finally a *real* BETA.) will include
>Win32s in the developer kit.  What does this mean?  Win32s will let developers
>create a *native* Win/NT binary that will also run on Windows 3.1 (With the
>appropriate DLLs).  Any Win32s binary under Windows 3.1 will be true 32 bit
>code running in a flat address space.  It will also run about 20% - 30%
>faster than a non-Win32s binary under Windows 3.1.
>
Oh yes, the infamous, "Where my OS is finally released.." statement.  I've seen
NT and used it for a while, and frankly it's crap. It huge and slow on most
of the PC's around here, and we're not going to throw them out, inspite of
Phil's claim that they are obscelete.  Sure I know NT is beta and loaded
with debug code, but on my machine OS/2 just runs better.

> [Win32s gloating removed]

Contrary to what you must think, I too develop Windows Apps, and like you
I am waiting for 32s, but in reality, while your company is off building
real fast apps for NT, I'll be building arguable slower apps for Windows
3.0, 3.1, NT, OS/2, for machine even as old as 8088s.  Sure yours may have
more bells and whistles, but which of you customers is going to upgrade
a complete set of hardware, just to run your app under NT?  Do you honestly
think that anyone but Microsoft will produce 3 or 4 different versions of
a product? NOT!!  Not to mention the confusion it would give customers.

You seem to have this jaded vision that all the world will be running NT
by the end of the decade, but the age of a single OS is over.  I think
that both OS/2 and NT will have places in the industry, with probably
equal market shares in time.


Steven Gutz
AECL Research
Chalk River Laboratories
Chalk River Ontario
Canada K0J 1J0
GUTZ@CC49.CRL.AECL.CA