From: ddulay@jarthur.claremont.edu (Daniel Dulay)
Subject: Re: NSTL compares OS/2 2.0 and Windows 3.1
Organization: Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 06:38:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.051133.5806@fcom.cc.utah.edu> brian@jaguar.cs.utah.edu (Brian Sturgill) writes:
>
>From a Microsoft press release:
>NSTL Rates Windows 3.1 as "Platform of Choice"
>	National Software Testing Labs (NSTL) determined that
>the Microsoft  Windows operating system version 3.1 is the
>"Platform of Choice to Run Today's Applications" in a thorough
>head-to-head evaluation against OS/2* 2.0, published in Software
>Digest* Ratings Report by NSTL (August 1992, Vol. 9, No. 4).  In
>an independent evaluation of both products, NSTL tested more
>than 100 PC hardware systems and ran more than 680 performance
>tests to reach its conclusion.
>	NSTL's overall rating was based on three major criteria:
>performance,  hardware compatibility and usability.  NSTL
>measured performance based on common user activities such as
>printing, scrolling and memory tasks.  Microsoft Windows 3.1 was
>found to outpace OS/2 in performance when running single tasks
>with Windows-based applications.  Microsoft Windows also
>performed almost every task more quickly than OS/2 whether the
>tester rebooted before the benchmark or reran the test.  In the
>Windows-based application multitasking trials, NSTL found that
>Microsoft Windows' multitasking capabilities outperformed OS/2's
>when running more than one task at a time.
>	Windows ran without any problems on all but one of 102
>hardware systems tested, while OS/2 had problems ranging from
>minor complications to outright incompatibility on 25 systems
>tested.  In the usability category, Windows was found to be easier
>to learn because of the familiar interface of the many Windows-
>based programs on the market today.  NSTL said that the revamped
>OS/2 interface added to users' learning curve.  NSTL also
>determined that Windows was easier to install and had superior
>documentation.
>	For information on obtaining a copy of the report, contact
>Meryl Stern at NSTL, (215) 941-9600 ext. 410.
>
>Brian
>-- 
>C. Brian Sturgill                I strongly encourage you to read Ross Perot's
>University of Utah                             United We Stand
>Center for Software Science             How we can take back our country.
>brian@cs.utah.edu; CIS: 70363,1373  (It's more important than OS/2 vs NT! :-))

Could you please give us a little more information on these results?  I'm
not really interested in making a long distance phone call to discover that
I will have to pay for the report (I'm a poor college student).  For
example could you expand on the nature of the "outright incompatiblity"?
How are we to know that this incompatibility wasn't due to the running of
the tests on pc's w/ known compatibility problems, e.g. 286's . . .

I'm also interested in how the usability tests were performed and who the
test subjects were (GUI users, people on the street, some/lots of
computer experience . . .)  Also how did win31 outperform OS/2's
multitasking "when running more than one task"?  Lastly OS/2's pathetic
lack of apps makes me wonder about how the usability of apps measured
into these tests.  Did OS/2 get close to 0?  Did they use old OS/2 1.x
apps which use the old window's interface?

If you don't have the report could you please let me know where you heard/
read of the report.

Thanks
Daniel Dulay
ddulay@jarthur.claremont.edu