From: davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn)
Subject: Re: OS/2 vs Win NT (was: 4 Colour Interfaces : -( )
Organization: Qld Dept Primary Industries
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 00:07:16 GMT

In article <1992Dec10.081333.5255@utstat.toronto.edu> philip@utstat.toronto.edu (Philip McDunnough) writes:
>In article <1992Dec9.234318.12898@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au> davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au (David Meiklejohn) writes:
>
>[ ]
>>
>>NeXTStep/486 is probably very nice, but I really don't see who'll buy it.
>>Only those familiar with NeXTs now, and, outside academia, that's almost
>>no one.  Solaris 2.0 for the x86 has a market - we've considered changing to
>>it from SCO Unix, so we have the same OS on the 486 NFS server here as on the
>>workstations on the lan.  AT&T's SVR4.2 ("Destiny") is another worthy
>>contender.  The trouble is that we have several Unix variants fighting it out,
>>and I can't see the PC Unix market growing.
>
>NeXTStep 486 already has sold a lot of copies, even though it isn't released
>at this time. You should have a look at the mainly PC (some Mac) newspaper
>InfoWorld. It's a rather solid information/reviews source for PC and other
>industry news. They recently reviewed both NS 3.0 (on a NeXT) and
>NeXTSTep 486. Both received over 7.5 in all categories and ended up with 
>an 8.0 (on a scale 1->10 where 7.5 is considered excellent). The reviews
>were most surprising coming from a PC trade journal.

Yes, but good reviews are hardly a guarantee of success.  Like I said, I'm
sure it's great, but hey, Amigas are great too.  It doesn't help much.

>So at $995 (user) list, and this includes a lot of software, and support for
>both Windows3.1 and DOS, I most definitely woul not discount NeXT's product.

I'm not discounting anything.  Each of the OS's I mentioned has a market, and
those markets can be substantial in their own terms.  For example, it's likely
that NeXT will sell more copies of their OS on PCs than they have sold
NeXTStations - a big success for them in terms of the userbase they have now,
but not in terms of absolute market share.

>My own feeling is that OS/2 will still dominate in the end, but if it does
>not then I very much doubt that Windows () will. 

I still can't see it.  I'm responible for supporting more than a hundred PCs.
Windows is all over the place, and growing.  People are buying ram, upgrading
motherboards, etc. just to run it.  Yet, in my region, we only have one PC
running OS/2, and that's so they can run some specialist software.  As far
as I can tell, we're typical of government departments, in this state, at
least.

And yet, I'm a strong supporter of OS/2.  I've been pushing for it.  I've
suggested people buy it - we have users with 486s with 16 megs, and they're
mad to be running Windows on that.  They're not effectively using their
hardware.  But, ordinary users resist because they don't want to learn a new
OS.  That's the crucial point.  They know Windows, and they think it's good
enough for what they want to do.  They even think they're able to multitask
with it...

That's why DOS and Windows will continue, and, by calling NT "Windows",
Microsoft guarantee it's eventual acceptance.

>it not as though OS/2 is tied to Intel.
>It is not (something which keeps getting repeated here).

NT was written to be portable - OS/2 2.0 isn't.  That doesn't mean it can't
be ported, but it would be a huge effort.

>The question 
>is what could you do with Windows NT that you can't with OS/2 and even for
>that matter with the Integral had it been allowed to survive?

Nothing.  It's marketing.  Sad, but there you are.  :-(

>OS/2 is picking up momentum eveywhere. I go to a lot of ordinary users'
>computerfests.

Most users don't go to computerfests.  Of course the enthusiasts are
interested, but they do not the market make.


-- 
David Meiklejohn (also known as davidme@qdpii.comp.qdpi.oz.au)
 - Regional support guy for PC's, Unix, and networks thereof.
 - But I'd rather be using an AMIGA!  Wouldn't you?
Find me in Mareeba, Australia (on the pointy bit in the northeast)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy