From: xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters)
Subject: Re: OS/2 VS NT! The Future War Looms...
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 06:13:10 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 

In <1992Sep14.042311.18756@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:

>>Why?  With over a million users already?  And even if NT came out today,

>OS/2 does not yet have a million users.  There is probably not more
>than 1,250,000 copies shipped at present.

'Sfunny, I thought PC-Weak announced over a month ago that IBM had said
there were a million copies SOLD!  Not shipped, SOLD!  It's MS that
likes to announce the shipped numbers (so they can count all the copies
of Windows bundled with every Windows package under the sun).  I thought
I heard about another 300,000 sold in ONE WEEK last month.

>  This number includes multiple licenses.

Whatever.  Multiple licenses certainly seems to be a reasonable thing to
include, since they're presumably paid for, and possible installed and
running.

In any case, once you factor in piracy, 1 million users starts to sound
pretty believable...   :-)  (Isn't there some estimate like, for every
copy of a program sold, three pirate copies are running somewhere?  :-)

>>all that would happen is that people would see that OS/2 costs $150, NT
>>costs $500.  OS/2 is competing with DOS+Windoze, rather more than it is
>>with NT (especially at the moment :-)).

>NT does not cost $500... this is certain... all Microsoft has said
>is that it will cost less than $500.  This of course COULD be $499...

Or it could be $499.95 + sales tax.  :-)

>Initially NT can be obtained quite cheaply,

Well, I'd hope so, since the stupid thing won't even run most DOS or
Windows apps.  Microsoft's gonna have to do *something* to get people to
invest in a turkey like that!  :-)

>>Now, if someone wants to run *both* Lan Manager and TCP/IP, they'll
>>probably find NT to be a good bargain.  If they only want to run ONE of
>>those, they'll find OS/2 to be less expensive.  It may be nice to have
>>options, but most people simply won't care.

>I think you should read my cost comparisons at the end of my list more
>closely.

>At home I'd like Multimedia and File/Printer sharing.
                  ^^^^^^^^^^
I think you should read what *I* said more carefully!  Did I say
anything about "Multimedia"?  No!  Personally, I feel that once the hype
and BS dies down, multimedia will go back to being the tiny niche market
that it really is.  Hell, I have a couple of thousand customers who
don't even want GRAPHICS!!  Not if they have to spend an extra $50 per
workstation.  You think I'm going to be able to sell these people
multimedia???  I think not!

Now, networking is important.  In fact, networking is critical to most
businesses.  And OS/2 + *a* network is still cheaper than NT, which is
what I said originally.

>>desktop.  I agree that if NT releases by the end of the year, it may
>>have some impact on OS/2, but I seriously doubt that it will kill it. 
>>Any more than OS/2 has managed to kill DOS.  I still think about going
>>back to DESQview at times, myself.

>Well I always wondered what sort of user would use DESQview... now I know. :-)

Smile when you say that, podner!  :-)

Seriously, I haven't been able to get anyone else in my company
interested in OS/2.  Is this because they run Windoze?  Not!  Is this
because they've decided to wait for Microsoft to "save the day" with
their "New Technology"??  Double NOT!!

DESQview *is* a *damned* amazing system, and, like I say, there are
times when I'm seriously tempted to go back to it.

>(I mean DESQview has almost no applications available.)

Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!  ROFL!!!  Now that's good!!  That's really good!!  At
least you manage to keep your sense of humor through all this!  No
applications for DESQview!!  <gasping for breath!>  Damn, I haven't
laughed so hard reading this group EVER!  :-)

(Geeze <suddenly getting worried look>, that was a joke, wasn't it?  It
better have been a joke.  It must have been a joke.  Surely nobody would
make such a statement seriously.  Would they?  Yeah, it must have been a
joke.  Only somebody with the brains of a flea, who's been trapped in a
barrel, away from all computers for the last decade, could make such a
statement seriously.  Yeah, not even an NT fanatic would be stupid
enough to make a statement like that seriously.  I hope.)  :-)

>>>If NT ships 1Q93 it will be a lot closer.  Borland C++ for OS/2 will
>>>have been rleased
>>
>>I seriously doubt if this is going to make any difference in OS/2 sales
>>one way or the other. [...]

>I think you misunderstand the point.  Once Borland C++ gets on OS/2, it
>will finally have a professional development environment and C++.

OS/2 already has professional development environmentS.  It also has a
great DOS development environment.  In fact, the main reason I *don't*
go back to DESQview is that then I wouldn't be able to use the OS/2
version of MSC to compile my DOS apps.  And the OS/2 version is faster,
and seems to have slightly better optimization.  Especially on large
projects.

>Judging from a raising of hands at the NT developers conference at least
>1,000 of the 4,600 attending use Borland for Windows development.

Which leaves 3,600 who *aren't* using Borland.  Probably the great
majority of those are using MSC, which means that they've been working
in C, not C++.  Which means that they don't have to wait for anything. 
Going from MSC to Watcom or C Set/2 is nowhere near as big a deal as
going from C to C++.

So far, I have yet to hear of *any* major vendor announce that they
can't develop for OS/2 because C++ isn't available yet.

>Lotus doesn't make anything that Microsoft doesn't have a better version
>of [...]

Tell the Ami fanatics that!  :-)

>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.

Excuse me.  There is no such thing as a "pre-beta."

In any case, I'll judge NT's DOS compatibility when NT ships.  In the
mean time, all I can say is that I find OS/2's DOS compatibility to be
marginal.  If NT's is *any* worse, I will have to judge it completely
unacceptable.

>Windows for Workgroups and DOS 6.0 are currently in beta... I think
>OS/2 will have quite a bit of competition from these on the low-end.

That could be.  I'll judge 'em when I see 'em.  Again, I still think
that OS/2 is competing more with Windows (and DESQview) than with NT, so
this *is* probably where the real competition for OS/2 will come from.
-- 
Chris Waters    | the insane don't | NOBODY for President!
xtifr@netcom.COM| need disclaimers | Because Nobody's perfect!!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy