From: tlilley@jarthur.claremont.edu (Thomas (Ted) Lilley)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: 32-bit OS/2 Apps List
Date: 12 Oct 92 09:56:16 GMT
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711

In article <1992Oct12.054854.16201@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>In article <1992Oct12.043118.12809@midway.uchicago.edu> soh3@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>>In article <1992Oct12.034402.14805@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>>>
>>>I think in the end you will have to agree with me that ISV support
>>>for OS/2 is weak. 
>>>
>>
>>Brian, you seem to indulge yourself too much in this point, but don't
>>you think it is too early to predict?  OS/2 2.0 is out for six or seven
>>months now.  Compared to Windows 3.x, it is a way too short a time.  Besides,
>>even though the list may not be too impressive, don't you also think all the
>>major application developers like Borland, Lotus, WordPerfect, Computer
>>Associates, SAS, and others who said they are developing os/2 2.0 versions
>>of their apps are more than adequate for the moment?  With os/2's success,
>
>Remember that the list contained not existing apps, but rather
>_existing_ and _planned_ apps.
>If you consider that list is likely a best case scenario for the OS/2 2.0
>apps in the next 2 years, then no I don't think they're even close to

Why would you say that the list is a best-case scenario?  There is no
way to predict that now, because the healthiness of OS/2 development
depends on the sales of OS/2 in the next two years.  Obviously, I
know you think OS/2 will fail, and such is the reason you made that
statement.  However, if, contrary to your beliefs, OS/2 sells well in
the next two years, the list of developers will surely grow, not stay the
same or decrease.  Avoid undue assumptions.

>adequate.  Borland only put two of their apps on OS/2, and have said
>both are development tools, and one of the (C++) was financially encouraged
>by IBM (the details are secret).

Very interesting.  Is this a plot, or do you actually know what you're
talking about?

>
>Lotus and WordPerfect pride themselves on being on all platforms.
>SAS is on multiple platforms, and their strong association with the IBM
>world make them naturals to be on OS/2.

I fail to see the bearing of this, except to show that perhaps their
motivation was not because they liked OS/2.  That does not matter, though,
it's the support that counts.  Even if they don't care about OS/2 (which
is cannot be totally true, since they think it is worthy to be developed
for), they may be in for a pleasant surprise in their investment.  Then
again, maybe not.  Time will tell.

>
>Computer Associates on have that works package there, and this is
>not surprising as they have no competition, and they're probably tired
>of losing to MS Works.
>
>In short, the list of vendors there is not surprising, and I see little
>indication that this will grow any time soon.  Worse for OS/2 1Q93
>will bring a ton of competing OS's... NT, UnixWare, Solaris 2.0 386,
>NextStep 486, etc.

I don't think the list of vendors was there to surprise you, Brian, it
was to show the degree of OS/2 support planned.  Why you are compelled
to try to explain away the evidence, now that it's in front of you,
I do not know, but it does not matter.  What  would be far more pertinent
would be to see a list of planned NT support, since we are ever-so-often
making comparisons between the two OS's.

>What possible grounds do you have for stating that "os/2's success
>is becoming more and more apparent"?  It had a respectable sales
>initially, but it's bugginess seems to have stiffled its deployment.
>I wouldn't say its doing poorly, but it looks quite possible that it may
>not even make the 2 million mark of the the 2-3 million copies most
>analysts said it would do in March.

Since it has been in the top ten list of sellers in more than one magazine,
it's fairly obvious that it is a popular piece of software.  Not as popular
as Windows, but the odds are good that it will reach 2 million before next
March.

Again, we'll see.

Ted