From: Mark Kovarski <kovarski@zooid.guild.org>
Subject: A look at 1992...Continued.....
Organization: The Zoo of Ids
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 22:08:36 GMT


Journal:   PC Week  Oct 5 1992 v9 n40 p67(1)
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Title:     After four interesting years, it's time to move on.
Author:    Zachmann, William.

This is my final column for PC  Week. It was October 1988 when I wrote
my  first column  for this  publication. Microsoft  and IBM were still
fully committed  partners then, working together  on OS/2. Bill Gates,
in  a book  published that  year (Ed  Iaccobucci's "OS/2  Programmers'
Guide"), said,  "I believe OS/2 is  destined to be the  most important
operating system, and possibly program, of all time."

Back then, many people thought of  me as an "IBM basher." Some friends
of mine marveled  at the courage of the  Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. and
of  PC Week  to give  a platform  to someone  who was  thought by many
(including many at IBM) to be  "anti-IBM." They were surprised that ZD
and PC  Week would risk  the possible ire  of an important  advertiser
like IBM.

In  fact,  I  was  neither  an  IBM  basher  nor  anti-IBM. I got that
reputation because of  my assessment of the realities  of the industry
and the market, not because of any feelings for or against any vendor.
Financial analysis of IBM's results circa  1983 to 1986 showed me that
asset  sales, in  the form  of conversion  from leases  and rentals to
outright sales, had been a major factor in IBM's financial performance
in those years. I knew that couldn't last.

More fundamentally, I saw that "downsizing," which I believe I was the
first  to  name  (in  1985),  would  substantially  erode  demand  for
traditional  mainframe  and  minicomputer  systems  by  the end of the
1980s.  It was  on that  basis that  I'd predicted,  in 1986, that IBM
would actually  post losses by  the early 1990s.  That was one  reason
people thought I was anti-IBM (if not nuts!).

The other  was that I'd taken  a strong position that  IBM's effort in
1987  to   regain  proprietary  advantage   with  the  Micro   Channel
architecture and OS/2  Extended Edition was doomed to  fail. I praised
Microsoft for providing a balance that  would steer IBM away from that
effort in the end.

Today, matters are very different. IBM learned the lesson of its early
mistakes with OS/2 EE and Micro  Channel and is now, if anything, more
genuinely  committed to  standards than  is Microsoft.  It is IBM, not
Microsoft, that  steadfastly worked to keep  the commitments both made
concerning OS/2.

I never joined  the "OS/2 is dead"  chorus that tempted so  many other
analysts and members of the trade press. I continued to expect OS/2 to
do well. I  remained skeptical of Microsoft's promises  for Windows NT
that are so similar to the  promises Microsoft made and failed to keep
for OS/2. So today, some folks think that I am a Microsoft basher or a
Windows basher.

I am neither.  It is simply  my judgment that  Microsoft made a  major
strategic error to walk away from the promises it made for OS/2 and to
walk out  on IBM. I  think it overestimated  its own capabilities  and
underestimated IBM's.  I've predicted eventual  success for OS/2  and,
before long, major setbacks for Microsoft and for Windows.

That has not been a popular view with Microsoft and its supporters any
more  than my  views four  years  ago  were popular  with IBM  and its
supporters. Microsoft  Systems Journal Editor Eric  Maffei went out of
his  way to  slam both  me and  this column  in the July/August issue.
Microsoft  VP Jonathan  Lazarus has   been quoted  in the  daily press
expressing his displeasure with me as well.

That's an  old story for me,  however. I'm used to  it. My predictions
about IBM four  years ago proved to be correct.  Over the next year or
two, we  will see whether  my current predictions  about Microsoft and
Windows prove correct also. I suspect they will.

In any case,  Microsoft and its supporters need not  be troubled by my
views in this  column any longer. Times have changed  at PC Week, too.
It's been  an interesting four  years here, but  it is time  for me to
move on. See you  'round the industry and all the best  to you for the
future.
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Journal:   EDGE: Work-Group Computing Report  Oct 12 1992 v3 n125 p28(1)
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IBM Tuesday  announced an integrated  suite of new  products that will
enable customers to manage local area network (LAN) resources, such as
files,  applications  and  printers,   from  a  single  administrative
location on a LAN.

The family of products -- called IBM LANfocus Management/2 -- draws on
the robust  capabilities of OS/2  2.0 and will  allow large and  small
customers to reduce  the costs of managing multivendor  LANs across an
enterprise.

To  ensure  interoperability  with  a  broad  range of other products,
LANfocus Management/2  supports industry standards such  as the Common
Management Information  Protocol (CMIP) and  Simple Network Management
Protocol  (SNMP) and  implements major  portions of  SystemView, IBM's
strategy for enterprise-wide systems management.

The  new platform  allows the  LAN administrator  at a  workstation to
access different systems management applications using the same visual
screen. It provides enhanced  automation and greater integration among
products to streamline such management  tasks as detecting hardware or
software failures on  the network -- which often  require the combined
efforts  of users  and trained  personnel at  both remote  and central
locations.

The  LANfocus  Management/2  announcement  includes  two  key  product
groups:

- A   framework  for   building  and   executing  systems   management
applications  that  allows  the  LAN  administrator  to  look  at  and
communicate with all hardware and software attached to the network.

- A  core  set  of  systems  management  applications  for  overseeing
performance and system utilization; viewing configuration and handling
problems;  managing  Novell  servers;  and  providing  connections  to
NetView, IBM's flagship host-based network management product.

"Customers  need  comprehensive  tools  to  manage  their increasingly
distributed, multivendor networks," said  Art Olbert, Personal Systems
Director of LAN Systems.

SUPPORT  FOR  INDUSTRY  STANDARDS  To  encourage  the  development  of
third-party  systems  management  applications,  LANfocus Management/2
provides  a set  of common  application programming  interfaces (APIs)
that  have been  accepted by  key industry  organizations that further
standards, such as  the Open Software Foundation (OSF  and X/Open, and
accepted by IBM's SystemView.

One of  these interfaces, named the  X/Open Management Protocol (XMP),
allows developers  to create applications  without having to  know the
underlying management and transport protocols,  such as CMIP and SNMP.
SystemView has adopted XMP as its Common Management Interface Protocol
(CMIP),  and the  LANfocus Management/2  products are  among the first
management  products in  the industry  to incorporate  elements of the
OSF's Distributed Management Environment (DME) technology.

"DME  was specifically  created to   allow end  users to  manage their
distributed  open systems  cost-effectively," said  Jon Gossels, OSF's
Business  Area  Manager  for  Interoperability.  "We're  pleased that,
through IBM's LANfocus Management/2 family  of products, end users can
begin to take advantage of the benefits of OSF's DME initiative."

LANFOCUS  MANAGEMENT/2 FAMILY  OF PRODUCTS  The LANfocus  Management/2
framework supports applications such  as notifying a LAN administrator
when  there are  hardware or  software failures,  monitoring how  much
memory each  workstation is using, generating  pictures of how devices
on  the  network  are  connected,  or  distributing  software  updates
throughout the network. Together with  NetView and other IBM products,
these  applications   can  provide  customers   with  a  comprehensive
distributed systems management solution.

The  LANfocus Manage/2  product is  used to  build and  execute system
management  applications.  Manage/2   determines  which  workstations,
applications and other  resources are on the LAN,  and displays -- via
View/2 --  how they are connected,  and then indicates any  changes in
these connections.

LANfocus View/2 uses  colored icons shaped like PCs  and other network
elements that enable  the administrator to observe the  network at any
level  of  detail  --  the  entire  LAN,  a  discrete  segment,  or an
individual workstation,  device or other resource.  View/2 is based on
the OS/2 2.0  Workplace Shell that makes it  easier for programmers to
create networking, management and other applications.

The following  products include "agents"  that provide information  to
Manage/2  and  its  applications,  allowing  the  LAN administrator to
manage network resources:

- LANfocus Enable/2 acts as the agent for OS/2 2.0 systems.

- LANfocus Agents/2 provides additional  information for OS/2, as well
  as for DOS 5.0, DOS 5.0 with Microsoft Windows 3.1, and the OS/2 LAN
  Requester.

- LANfocus Agents Extended/2 provides  information for IBM LAN Server,
  and  OS/2  Extended  Services'  Database  Manager and Communications
  Manager.

IBM  also announced  its intent  to  deliver  a core  set of  LANfocus
Management/2 systems management applications:

- LANfocus Monitor/2  monitors system performance  indicators, such as
  disk  input and  output, and  gathers and  reports statistics on how
  network resources are being used.

- LANfocus Start/2  lets the administrator  use rich, visual  icons to
  manage, plan and validate the configuration of resources.

- LANfocus  Fix/2  acts  to  monitor  network  problems  discovered by
  Agents/2  and  Agents.  It  allows  the  LAN  administrator  to  set
  priorities for which problems will  be reported and what recommended
  repair actions will be taken.

- LANfocus NetView  Tie/2 transmits events  requiring host involvement
  to NetView as alerts.

- NetWare  Services Manager  for LANfocus  Management/2 provides  full
  management services for Novell networks.

- LANfocus  Management/2 will  also  be  integrated with  IBM's MASS/2
  subsystem  of  the  recently  announced  IBM  PS/2 Server 295, which
  provides  improved server  monitoring and  control and significantly
  enhances   the  administration   of  large,   complex  client/server
  networks.

These applications support industry standards,  such as CMIP and SNMP,
and conform to the SystemView framework.

Early versions of the LANfocus  Management/2 platform products will be
tested  in  customer  and  vendor  environments  beginning this month.
Testing for the core systems  management applications will begin early
in 1993.

APPLICATION  SUPPORT  FROM  INDEPENDENT  SOFTWARE  VENDORS  To provide
customers  with  a  single  platform  for  managing NetWare local area
networks, IBM and Novell have agreed that both companies will market a
NetWare Services Manager for LANfocus Management/2 products.

"NetWare  Services Manager  for OS/2  can achieve  its full  potential
within  the framework  of LANfocus  Management/2," said  Kanwal Rekhi,
executive vice  president of Novell's  Interoperability Systems Group.
"Customers who  rely on OS/2  can feel confident  that IBM and  Novell
will  continue  to  support  their  needs  by providing a full-service
systems and network management environment."

Microcom Inc. has  announced its intention to market  LANlord LM/2, an
integrated suite of real-time management applications for software and
hardware reporting, remote configuration management, and other systems
management functions for the LANfocus Management/2 environment.

IBM  is  encouraging  other  independent  software  vendors  (ISVs) to
provide additional applications on  the LANfocus Management/2 platform
and is  supporting these efforts with  technical assistance. Customers
may  also   choose  to  implement  their   own  LANfocus  Management/2
applications.

To date, 14  ISVs have announced that their  products will support the
LANfocus Management/2 framework,  including Novell, Microcom, Computer
Associates and Ungermann-Bass.

PRICES & AVAILABILITY Following are prices and availability:

IBM LANfocus  Manage/2 1.0 --  $1,245; available 2nd  quarter 1993 IBM
LANfocus View/2 1.0  -- $595; available 2nd quarter  1993 IBM LANfocus
Enable/2 1.0 -- $55; available  2nd quarter 1993 IBM LANfocus Agents/2
1.0 -- $55; available 2nd  quarter 1993 IBM LANfocus Agents Extended/2
1.0      --      $75;       available      2nd      quarter      1993.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Journal:   Government Computer News  Oct 12 1992 v11 n21 p43(2)
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IBM  Corp. networking  products are  often, though  not always,  smart
purchases.  But the  broad hints  from cognoscenti  that IBM is losing
ground  to  competitors  in  providing  the  hardware  and software to
connect  its mainframes,  minis and  PCs to  non-IBM devices should be
taken with a grain of salt.

Every year  or so, a rumor  circulates that IBM is  nearly moribund in
network management and services, and that smaller providers are better
equipped to do the job Big Blue itself won't or can't do. Bunk.

History shows there's always room at the  top for a few upstarts. As a
GCN staff writer a few years ago, I met two representatives of a small
Utah company that  seemed to have a pretty  good idea of how to  run a
LAN.

Novell  Inc.'s current  63 percent  stranglehold on  the LAN operating
system market  is testimony to the  fact that it still  pays to have a
good sense of timing about what users want.

If  you've been  reading lately  about Microsoft  Windows 3.1  and its
soon-to-be,  LAN-based successor,  Windows NT,  you know  that another
formerly small  company with a  big idea also  has a chance  to make a
very strong showing in the LAN arena.

But that's far from saying that  IBM lacks the technology and interest
to connect its own and others' equipment into a LAN or larger network,
or that Novell or Microsoft could do it better.

IBM  still owns  the lead  in networking  and looks  like it has every
intention of  holding on. Network-related announcements  are coming so
fast  out  of  Armonk,  N.Y.,  it's  hard  to  keep  up  with  them. A
late-summer press blitz  announced a beta program for  LAN Server 3.0,
an upgrade that  makes good on an IBM promise  to include its enhanced
High  Performance File  System for   running OS/2  on both  client and
server devices and to put in peer-to-peer services.

Federal networkers  should be especially  happy with LAN  Server 3.0's
built-in TCP/IP communications protocols.

For tighter  network management on TCP/IP  networks, IBM also recently
announced the AIX NetView  Hub Management Program/6000 that integrates
its  new  8250  Multiprotocol  network  hubs  into  systems  with RISC
System/6000 servers.

I was  particularly impressed  with the  8250 hubs.  In answer  to the
implication that IBM networking solutions  serve only IBM hardware and
LAN  topologies,  the  8250  connects  Token-Ring,  Ethernet and Fiber
Distributed Data Interface networks through a single hub.

That means non-IBM as well as IBM systems can be connected through the
8250, and  it also could mean  an end to those  "computing islands" --
LANs  with  different  operating  systems  and  protocols  --  now  in
virtually every federal agency.

There are  other good multiprotocol  hubs, routers and  bridges on the
market. But if I were a  federal systems manager, I certainly would be
interested  in  a  $2,410  (six-slot)  to  $4,465  (17-slot)  hub that
guaranteed the  interoperability of divergent LANs  while linking with
IBM's  overall System  View strategy,   of which  the AIX  NetView Hub
Manager Program/6000 is a part.

IBM also announced  a family of creditcard network  adapters that will
hook  up portable  computers to  Token-Ring and  Ethernet LANs and let
them do 3270 terminal emulation. Only slightly larger and thicker than
real  credit  cards,  these  adapters  are  designed  to  deliver full
networking capability to portable computers.

Lots of  companies make network  adapters, but these  particular ones,
along with other networking announcements, show IBM's determination to
remain dominant  in virtually every  area of network  technology. That
means  network  operating  systems,  management  strategies  and every
category of network hardware imaginable.

Enough  said.  I'm  definitely  in   favor  of  a  large,  diversified
networking industry  that has room for  scores of smaller participants
as  well as  a few  big  guys.  But IBM's  networking strength  at all
product  levels ought  to be  factored in  when federal  managers make
their network purchasing decisions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Journal:   PC Week  Oct 12 1992 v9 n41 p1(2)
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BOCA  RATON, Fla.  -- IBM  will counter  Microsoft Corp.'s Windows for
Workgroups  offensive   by  providing  similar   peer  networking  and
work-group features for OS/2 2.0, officials here said last week.

The  product,  which  will  be  released  next  year, will borrow peer
network capabilities from LAN Server 3.0 and likely include technology
from Lotus  Development Corp.'s Notes. Also  due next year is  a major
OS/2 upgrade  stocked with system-management  capabilities among other
enhancements, company officials said.

On its  long-term agenda, IBM  is working to  challenge Microsoft's NT
with a  portable, multiprocessing operating  system based on  the Mach
3.0  kernel,  due  in  late  1993.  IBM  will  demonstrate  the kernel
technology,  running  OS/2,  AIX,  DOS  and  Windows  applications, at
Comdex/Fall next  month, officials said.  IBM showed portions  of this
release at last month's Unix Expo.

While the work-group computing field is not new to IBM -- it abandoned
its OfficeVision strategy last year in  favor of Notes -- the computer
giant has yet to articulate a clear game plan for OS/2.

"Windows for  Workgroups has taken  headlines by storm,  and there's a
lot of interest  [from competitors] trying to figure  out what happens
as  you bundle  networking or  applications into  a desktop  operating
system,"  said Ann  Palermo, director  of office  systems research  at
International Data Corp., a  market-research firm in Framingham, Mass.
"IBM has to be one of those companies doing the calculating."

Without  making an  official  announcement,  IBM executives  last week
discussed  a   strategy  to  make  OS/2   2.0  more  competitive  with
Microsoft's Windows  for Workgroups. The  offering -- whether  it be a
new version of OS/2 or an add-on  to the operating system -- will draw
on the  peer networking capability of  IBM's LAN Server 3.0,  which is
now in beta  test, said Shon Saliga, IBM's  OS/2 product manager here.
IBM  is  also  expected  to  incorporate  Notes and cc:Mail technology
available to it through an agreement with Lotus, officials said.

"Most of our customers haven't said  they want an OS/2 for work groups
[capability], but they  have said they want more  granularity in their
ability  to roll  out networks,"   added Jeff  Dean, IBM's  manager of
alliances and software tools, also here.

Dean did not give a firm  shipping date for the Windows for Workgroups
competitor,  but  he  said  it  would  probably  be released within 12
months.

IBM's work-group effort is an  extension of a project called Workgroup
Manager, launched  in the summer  of 1991, which  was put on  the back
burner  as  IBM   concentrated  on  shipping  OS/2  2.0   and  on  its
reorganization, sources said.

Along  with  the  OS/2  work-group  capabilities,  IBM  is planning an
upgrade to  the operating system  that will deliver  system-management
features designed  to monitor performance, log  errors, and detect and
diagnose problems,  Saliga said. This release,  planned for the second
half of next year, will  be aimed at companies downsizing applications
from mainframes, he said.

One corporate  user said system-management  tools are far  more useful
than  peer-networking features.  "We're at  the point  on the  desktop
where we're trying to do mission-critical applications, so providing a
level of support  that we're used to having in  the mainframe world is
appropriate," said Bob Holmes, computer technology research analyst at
Southern California Gas Co., a utility in Los Angeles.

While peer networking has some benefits,  it is not a substitute for a
centralized  file server,  Holmes said.  "If `Joe'  doesn't show up to
work and he's got a password on his [PC] and files that people need to
do their work, they're out of luck," he said.

In  addition to  system-management horsepower,  the OS/2  upgrade will
feature  the  second  version  of   IBM's  System  Object  Model,  the
underlying object architecture in the Workplace Shell. The enhancement
will add the ability for one  object to be simultaneously exploited by
multiple processes, IBM officials said.

The upgrade will also improve  performance on 4M-byte systems and will
sport cosmetic changes to the Workplace Shell, officials said.

Beyond enhancing core OS/2 features,  IBM is continuing work on add-on
capabilities  to  the  operating  system  in  the  areas  of  pen  and
multimedia extensions. IBM plans to begin beta testing Pen OS/2 2.0 by
year's end and release it by the first quarter of 1993.

The firm also expects to release in the first half of 1993 version 1.1
of  the OS/2  multimedia  extensions,  adding support  for full-motion
video  running at  320-by-240-pixel resolution  and at  24 frames  per
second, said Scott Winters, lead architect of multimedia on OS/2.

In addition,  IBM is considering  releasing its own  version of MS-DOS
6.0 that adds  a character-based version of the  Workplace Shell in an
effort to appeal to entry-level users, officials said.
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