From: coxm@Software.Mitel.COM (Michael Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Why OS/2 **WILL** fail
Date: 28 Sep 92 13:26:28 GMT
Organization: Mitel. Kanata (Ontario). Canada.

In article <mg.717572342@elan> mg@elan (Michael Golan) writes:
>[discussion of OS/2 being too powerful erased]
>
>I'll second that. I almost like the WPS, which must mean that the average user
>won't ... There are far too many options, and it is far too easy to crash
>the system with them.
[remainder of suff deleted]
Well let me tell you a story . . .
   My Father belongs to a very small consulting firm.  He's seen PC's but has
never actually sat in front of one.  Earlier this month his company was moving
from one location to another and a proposal needed to be done immediately.
Added to this the WordProcessing people were taking their vacation over the two
week period the move was to take place.  They were using Windows.  Luckily they
also used WordPerfect (not for windows though).  Over the weekend of the move
my Father asked if he could use our computer.  I said sure, showed him how it
booted up, and how to get WordPerfect to run.  I run OS/2.
   On Monday he went to work with his first draft of the proposal.  That
afternoon I got home and there he was again.  They hadn't installed the
computers yet.  He had figured out that day:  how to print, how to get help
(OS/2), how to play Klondike, how to run DrawPerfect, and even how to set
alarms.
   Now my Father is not a rocket scientist, knows very little about computers,
and until the week before, had never sat in front of one either.  I figure that
if my Father can figure these things out in less than one day (he did a fair
bit of work too), than the WPS must be relatively intuitive.  In the week
prior to the move, he learned to use Windows enough to do some of his work and
the probably formed a bit of the basis for his abilities.
   I think the "average user" will find the WPS quite easy to use.  The other
"stuff" which requires changing DOS box settings etc. is:
 i) only a problem when the migration software does not recognize the package
    and therefore cannot adjust the settings, and
ii) i) above will go away as more vendors packages are recognized by the
    migration software OR software vendors add sheets to indicate which
    settings to alter and how to alter them.
  OS/2 provides a more stable environment to the user.  I average OS/2 crashes
about once every 20 days or so.  Compare that with DOS (5.0 about once a week),
or Windows (3.0) about twice a day.  For Mac (v6) I've never seen it crash
(although I've heard rumours that it sometimes does).  I wouldn't say that OS/2
would fail because of that.  However, as long as OS/2 applications are the same
(or lower) priced as their DOS/Windows versions and the fact that IBM continues
it advertisements the I would definitely see that OS/2 will become an operating
system to contend with over the next five years or so.  NT may become the OS of
choice during that time due to cost (500$ today will seem like 300$ in five
years).  However we have yet to see what IBM/Apple will bring.  I would like
to see an operating system that comes "complete" without the need for "add ons"
to do networking, SMP, distributed processing (Mach, Clouds?).


-- 
Michael H. Cox      | Referendum vote:
                    | Men vote:             YES
Mitel Corporation   | Women vote:           NO
                    | Hermaphrodites vote:  MAYBE
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy