🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <5978@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> cmdbyk@pmvax.weeg.uiowa.edu writes:
>I think we can see the fate of OS/2 if we look at its hardware analog,
>the MCA machine...
>technical superiority, real or imagined, is not giving IBM an overwhelming 
>edge in the market.

>I think we can read the fate of OS/2 and Windows in the fate of the MCA
>and ISA/EISA buses.  OS/2 probably won't dry up and blow away.  But I
>doubt it will supplant DOS/Windows; in fact, I'd guess DOS/Windows will be
>more popular, for similar reasons:  price (do you really think Microsoft
>won't compete in price against IBM?), relative ease of upgrading (you don't 
>have to install an OS and reinstall all your apps to install Windows), the 
>availability and price of add-ins (OS/2 apps are the software equivalent of 
>MCA cards:  scarce and overpriced), and the perceived return on investment
>by developers (if you wanted to make bigger bucks faster, which would you
>develop, a Windows app or an OS/2 app?).

There's a qualitative difference between hardware and software being 
successful on the market; at least as important also is IBM's handling
(read marketing) of the PS/2 vs OS/2 2.0.  The qualitative difference
is that OS/2 will run all your DOS applications; however you're PS/2
will not handle all your old AT-bus cards.  Thus OS/2 is downward-
compatible with all your old software; the PS/2 is NOT downward
compatible with all your old hardware.

The marketing difference is that the PS/2 costs about 3 times as much
as a similarly equipped clone and, from the non-technical user's point
of view, no obvious added function.  IBM is notorious for very terse,
technical marketing, and the masses don't go for the PS/2 because (and
I'm simplying this argument, to say the least ;-) they couldn't care
less about the technical mumbo-jumbo in PS/2 addvertisements.  (I haven't
seen a PS/2 advertisement in quite a while, mind you, but that's only
because I don't read the trade rags all that often.)  I don't really know
all that much about the hardware differences myself; I *do* know that
my 386/33 at home beats the pants off my 386/20 PS/2 at work.  OS/2,
on the other hand, has some pretty obvious and simple to explain benefits
to the end user.  The end user doesn't give a damn about 32 bit flat 4 Gig
address spaces, task protection, pre-emptive multitasking, and the high-
performance file system.  The user *does* care, and understand, the
equivalent phrases "your spreadsheet will run twice as fast" (since there's
no more 64K segments to worry about and a 32 bit OS makes many other
tasks faster); "your machine will never crash just because FinagoCalc
crashed"; and "you can now have huge disks and files with far better
performance".  These are obvious benefits to the end-user.  *This* is
why OS/2 2.0 should take the market by storm whereas the PS/2 is only
just dawdling along.

-- 
NOTICE: Due to the complexity of nearly all topics, the opinions expressed
above are in continual process of formation and may be changed without notice.

Wayne Hayes     INTERNET: wayne@csri.utoronto.ca        CompuServe: 72401,3525