From: brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 21:44:04 GMT

In article <195f1tINNofj@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> dab6@po.CWRU.Edu (Douglas A. Bell) writes:
>
>>But that just isn't so.  The cheapest peer-to-peer networking you can get from
>>IBM is TCP/IP+NFS  Cost: $195(OS/2 list price) + $200 (TCP Basekit) +
>>$150 (NFS -- I just looked up the NFS price) = $545
>>
>>That comes out to more than $500... how can you say that OS/2 can give
>>you the same for less?
>
>
>Wrong.
>
>IBM sells netware lite.  Netware lite runs under os/2 and only costs $79.
>
>And with a windows upgrade, I can get peer to peer OS/2 for $158 list price.  
>It is a messy, but it does give you peer to peer networking, and it is all 
>bought from IBM, so it nullifies your claim.

It gives you peer-to-peer in the DOS box... certainly this isn't even
close to giving you peer-to-peer networking under OS/2.

>
>Brian,
>
>Why are you being such a fanatic?  Do a hand full of os/2 zelots really
>bother you to such a degree that you have to fly completely off the other
>side of the scale?  Were you that upset when you didn't get a 'June' csd
>that you are under taking a holy war to cast mud on the name of OS/2 ?

Damn straight... I got ripped off.  Even the lastest TCP/IP doesn't work
right with drive folders, and occassionally get EXTREMELY slow forcing
a reboot.  I just want IBM zealots to see that IBM is no angel.
That people that do understand things like multitasking, can choose
even Windows 3.1 over OS/2.

>Do you like to pick logic for hours on end?  Do you leave little drops of
>spit on your monitor when you see that someone claims 1 million units of 
>OS/2 have been sold when you know in your heart that 1 million were 
>shipped, not sold?  

No, I don't like to clean my monitor so I avoid spitting:-).

As to the other... if OS/2 was actually close to a million users, I'd let
it drop, but as it is... they had better have a good bug fix soon.
Look... you may not realize this but I get mail from serious people all
the time.  Some of these people are earnestly trying to sort through the
crude in this group to come up with reliable information.
It is only reasonable to tell the quiet people simply reading
this group, that not even IBM thinks it has 1,000,000 OS/2 _users_ yet.

This group just loves to revel in rumors of OS/2 shipping
huge quantities and that they're mostly all in use.  I'm just trying
to inject some realism.  OS/2 to date, is doing OK.  If the soon to
be out bug fix DOES fix, the OS/2 will likely be doing quite well.
If it does not fix, then OS/2 might just disappear or at least become
irrelevant.  Professionally, I _DO_ care if OS/2 dries up and blows away.
Personally, I feel ripped off by IBM.  Sometimes my professional and
personal sides end up in the same message and things look weird.

What makes you think I'm just being a zealot?  I have a ton of information
sources not available to many people in this group.

How many people in this group actually develop applications for both?
How many have subscriptions to Byte, Microsoft Systems Journal, OS/2
Developer, Windows/DOS Developer, Doctor Dobbs, InfoWorld,
ComputerWorld, PC Week, Open Systems Today, and MacWeek?  (And yes I _do_
read them.) How many are going/have gone to USENIX, the NT developers
conference, the OS/2 developers conference and COMDEX in one year?
How many people in this group have access to most major OS's and have
people working on Mach in the same research group they work for? I
_may_ be annoying to some, and I surely am unduly strong about
advocating NT sometimes (in this group I feel it's necessary to
survive), but it's not like I'm some uninformed idiot speculating from
the blue.

I do try to point out my sources when I can... but sometimes
(for example in this case of how many shipped vs how many sold vs how
many users) I have the information from people inside IBM... some of
these people are not very fond of me (surprised?).  The last thing
I want is to bandy their name about -- I'd never get any information
again.  But the issue of how many users does OS/2 have is _very_ important.
The amount of ISV support lives and dies by this factor more than any other.

>
>Windows NT is 4-10 months away from shipping.
>Let's wait to see what ships and then make our judgements, O.K.?
>Just sit back and let history decide the winner in the operating 
>system wars, it is going to be the only thing that does, anyway.

If you are just going to sit back and wait, why do you read c.o.o.a?


Brian
-- 
C. Brian Sturgill                       *** OS/2 2.0 is for YOU! ***
University of Utah                  Microsoft needs some competition, but
Center for Software Science        -I- want to be one of the many using NT.
brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373           :-) :-) :-)