From: sip1@ellis.uchicago.edu (Timothy F. Sipples)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Reply-To: sip1@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Chicago
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 14:47:09 GMT

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.  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.

Actually, IBM has stated that the oft quoted one million figure (of
quite some time ago, now, before TV and before most print ads) did NOT
include free upgrades or multiple licenses.  It included real, live,
NEW copies -- straight up or upgrades from DOS and Windows.

OS/2 2.0 made Number 15 in the last PC Magazine software ranking,
incidently.  Even with direct sales through an 800 number (which are
excluded from PC Magazine's ranking), which make up a huge part of
OS/2 2.0 sales.

>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.

However, they haven't quoted a number, which is interesting.  They
always seem to be so forthcoming with Windows 3.1 numbers.

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

DESQView is a DOS multitasker (and a fine one at that).  I think it
has a few applications available.

Many folks are using OS/2 2.0 in similar fashion.  And what's wrong
with this?  You seem to treat "native applications" as a religious
issue.  Sure, they're nice, but don't you think that it is just
remotely possible that people can get more work done with a new
operating system using just old applications?  Case in point: under
Windows 3.1 you can only run one copy of Pagemaker 4.0 at a time,
which is annoying.  Under OS/2 2.0 you can run as many as system
resources (and your tolerance) will allow.

I use a mix of DOS, Windows (very few, increasingly -- I haven't been
able to pin down the reason; they run well enough, but they somehow
seem clunky now), and OS/2 applications.  I don't have a problem with
this; it works, and it works well.  I don't go pace around the office
or rush to the confessional because I have "sinned" and used a DOS
application under OS/2 2.0.  Most people upgrade software piecemeal --
they don't rush out and buy new everything.  This OS/2 2.0 allows, and
quite well.  This OS/2 2.0 encourages, really.

>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 (though I have
>heard good things about a presentation package from Lotus).

That's a little strong, don't you think?  Most would argue that Ami
Pro 3.0 has at least temporarily leap frogged Word for Windows, for
example.  Microsoft doesn't have a package even remotely comparable to
Notes, and I'm not sure they have one that competes with Freelance
Graphics.  Powerpoint, perhaps.

We're also going to start getting into issues of speed soon.  When
people are comparing 1-2-3/G 2.0 with good old 16-bit Excel, the
benchmarks are going to be in 1-2-3's favor.

>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).

Oh, I doubt that.  It is going to be painful for a lot of folks -- no
way around that.

Backward compatibility with DOS and Windows 3.x is so extremely
important in this marketplace, certainly on the client side, that if
NT is perceived as less than capable in this area it will suffer, in
my opinion.

-- 
Timothy F. Sipples      | The OS/2 FREQ. ASKED QUESTIONS LIST is avail. from
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