From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Date: 14 Sep 92 17:16:54 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Sep14.042311.18756@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>OS/2 does not yet have a million users.  There is probably not more
>than 1,250,000 copies shipped at present.  This number includes
>multiple licenses.

It does not.  A site license means that ONE copy is shipped, and the
site has permission to duplicate it up to the number of licenses.

>Further OS/2 1.X had about 800,000 copies out.
>A fair portion of these 1,250,000 (500,000?) are free upgrades... these
>are not necessarily in use.  The free upgrades were a limited time offer
>so one would be silly not to have them upgraded.

???  Why would I request an upgrade for a program I'm not using?  If I
discarded an OS/2 1.x setup, I don't think I'd be able to locate the
silly "proof of license" card to get the free upgrade, even if I
wanted it.

Is it really worth it for 21 diskettes?  (Remember, multiple upgrades
get sent one copy and a license for the rest)

>A number of corporate sites that would have taken advantage of the upgrade
>(all they had to do was get their SE to sign a form authorizing X 
>upgrade copies.) are not using the copies yet ... they're waiting on the bug
>fixes before committing. (I've seen no less than 3 articles in the trade
>rags talking about this... and I personally know of one instance.)

Yet you (and MS) think that "uncommitted" sales are sufficient as
advertising material for Windows.

>Depending on how important Windows applications are to that person
>will largely determine whether or not they are still using OS/2
>(OS/2 does not handle Windows applications very well,  it's harder
>to get them to install. In seamless mode they are slower even
>than under Windows 3.0.  Many high-res drivers don't exist for
>OS/2.0,  Almost none exist that handle seamless Windows.)

What do PM screen drivers have to do with running Windows apps?  You
love these statements don't you?  You know, I could claim that NT was
of no use to DOS users because it didn't include a Netware server, but
it wouldn't make much sense, would it?

You can install your existing Windows screen drivers in WIN-OS2, so
the display size is not important for a Windows user.

>Also, in the first month or two, users were often dupped into believing
>that OS/2 runs well in 4 or 6 megs.  Some users would upgrade memory, but
>possibly the majority would just switch back to Windows.

Nobody said "well".  They said it runs.  And it does.  And power-users
of Windows (like myself) know that Windows chokes on itself with less
than 8MB when you try and push it.

>Further not all of that 750,000 are actually sold.  Many of these
>will still be in sales channels... and as those channels are just now
>growing, it's possible that the number is substantial.

Not really.  I see stores with piles of unsold Windows 3.1 boxes,
managers complaining that MS gave away all the copies that were
supposed to be sold, while these stores usually sell their OS/2 boxes
quickly after arriving.  I've never seen more than 2 or three copies
of OS/2 in a store at any given time.  So who has more unsold copies?

>Finally some of these copies shipped come from bundling on PS/2's.
>I would suspect the percentage of these copies actually in use is far worse
>than even that of Windows 3.X.  Certainly Microsoft claims the DOS/Windows
>upgrade they designed for PS/2 users is a hot item.

Since when were PS/2's a hot-selling item?  And if I had a PC with
OS/2 pre-installed on it, why would I delete it and PAY $150+ for DOS
and Windows?

>In short, of the 1,250,000 currently probably only a quarter or a third
>are actually in use.  After a successful bug fix release this percentage
>might grow to two thirds.  A better percentage than Window 3.X to be sure.
>This of course assumes that the bug fix release will actually be
>BETTER.  My bet is they've rushed it yet again. Certainly I've had
>word from inside IBM that makes me suspect this.  The recent rumor
>posted here that the Windows 3.1 compatibility won't be there till later
>supports this too.

These are Windows 3.1 "in use" figures.  You seem to think that all
apps sell the same.  MS only has a 75% disuse figure because they give
copies away to everybody who sneezes in the right place.  All OS/2
shipments (aside from PS/2 bundles) have been either paid for or
requested.  Companies are not likely to order a package they don't
intend to use, and they're even less likely to PAY for a package they
don't intend to use.

>Well I always wondered what sort of user would use DESQview... now I know. :-)
>(I mean DESQview has almost no applications available.)

Very good.  Take a personal pot-shot when you don't have a better
response.  As for apps, most DOS and Windows apps run under DESQView.
Probably more than run under NT.  And a DESQView-aware app isn't
incompatible with plain DOS the way an NT app (and a 32-bit OS/2 app) is.

>I've already used a beta of Corel Draw for NT.  Lotus doesn't make anything
>that Microsoft doesn't have a better version of

What kind of argument is this?  If I use Lotus apps, I'm not about to
switch to NT because MS has better apps.  Come on, have you run out of
arguments here?  Do you really want to say that Lotus doesn't have
plans to release NT apps, yet?

>Oh, I've also seen  NT betas of FrameMaker and Visual Basic.

One of these (VB) is a Microsoft app, so I'd expect to find it ported.

>NT's stackable device driver structure should make things like Stacker
>quite trivial to do.

But does anyone have plans to do it?  OS/2's IFS structure makes it
simple to do as well.  And there exists one shareware app for this
already, and Stacker/2 should be released soon.

Both operating systems have the resources to do anything you want them
to.  Raw capability isn't important here.  The developers will develop
what the market wants unless it is impossible to do so.  This is why
apps like Lotus 1-2-3 3.x can run under DOS.

Heck, this is why Windows/DOS (as opposed to /NT) exists.

>I think you misunderstand the status of DOS compatibility under NT>
>The current pre-beta is very weak in comparision to OS/2's DOS box.
>But most of this is in the area of speed and lack of virtualized
>drivers (for example the joystick one is not there yet).  The
>only thing that NT probably won't do that OS/2 can is allow drivers
>that can write directly to hardware.  I doubt this is a problem for NT
>as it is clear that it will have a good selection of native drivers
>(which probably means they exist as virtualized devices inside NT DOS boxes).

So, if you've an unusual piece of hardware that only includes DOS
drivers, you're SOL with NT.  MS can't develop everything on their own
(maybe their trying - this would explain the delay :-), and they still
have to convince hardware vendors to write drivers for NT.  Giving
away DDK's won't solve that problem.

>Currently people use the fancy DOS features under OS/2 to do things like get
>to their MM devices or their networks to work with OS/2 via DOS.  Again this
>isn't a problem for NT as these things are built-in to the base system.  In
>fact this is a plus for NT... you don't have to do these things under DOS
>in NT... you get to use them in the native environment and they come
>as a part of the base package, so ISV support for these features should
>be good.  Also under NT users don't have to fiddle with all those
>infernal DOS settings like OS/2 has.

Those "infernal" DOS settings allow you to run more than the "top 100"
apps.

>Supposedly you can boot different versions of DOS under NT, but I've never
>tried it.

Really?  When was this announced.  YOur statement here is the first
I've heard of it.

>Windows for Workgroups and DOS 6.0 are currently in beta... I think
>OS/2 will have quite a bit of competition from these on the low-end.

Not if WfW has the same multitasking hangups that Win 3.1 has.  I
still can't get anyting useful done while the floppy goes.  I turned
on the SMARDRV write-caching for the floppies, and performance (during
floppy access) rises from nothing to almost-nothing.  Still not
useable.

>(I won't describe WforW as we're under non-disclosure.  It has however
>been revealed by the trade press that WforW will have peer-to-peer
>networking and e-mail.

Didn't you just begin to describe it the way you said you can't?  If
you're under non-disclosure, you shouldn't have even mentioned its
existance.  That's what non-disclosure means.  MS will make their
announcement when they're ready.  Believe me, if it was ready for
anything, they'd have advertised it everywhere except on the walls of
NYC subway bathrooms.

>DOS 6.0 I don't have access to, but it is said
>to be able to use filesystems exported by a WforW station, contain
>some utilites like Norton Backup, and has some sort of e-mail support.

Where are the press releases?  Where is any information other than
yourself?  You're either lying or violating non-disclosure contracts.
It is impossible to believe that you are the only channel that MS is
using to sell these products.

>I've also seen rumors that Novell requestors will come with DOS 6.0.
>Both will likely be released in the next two months.)

With no hype?  This is very un-MS-like.  I'd expect the advertising
campaigns to begin in the next two months, with the units shipping in
six. 
-- 
   |)  David Charlap           "LECTURER, n.  One with his hand in your pocket,
  /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu   his tongue in your ear, and his faith in your
 ((|,)                          patience."
  ~|~                              --- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary