🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <b2a0bk$nur$1@merki.connect.com.au>, 
nospam.vbien@attglobal.net says...
> G. Wayne Hines wrote:
> > In an earlier episode, "David T. Johnson" 
> > <djohnson@isomedia.com> wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >>A lot of discussion has occurred over the years about why OS/2 did not 
> >>take off with IBM.  People have pointed to Microsoft's illegal monopoly 
> >>activities, IBM's poor marketing skills, technical problems with various 
> >>OS/2 versions, lack of hardware and software support, and other things. 
> >>  Something seldom mentioned, however, is the possibility that the 
> >>decision to end OS/2 development was nothing but an arbitrary decision 
> >>made by former IBM CEO Lou Gerstner back in the mid-90s.  During an 
> > 
> > 
> > But, would that "arbitrary decision" perhaps have been made so 
> > IBM could get a better price break from Microsoft on Windows 95?
> > 
> > Microsoft seemed to have a distinct edge in the marketplace, 
> > thanks partly to FUD and promotion of what almost amounted to 
> > vapourware. Just how late was Windows 95? 
> > 
> > In the early 90's, computer dealers in this area were pushing MS
> > products over other brands. The issue was "compatibility". "That
> > program may not run on DR-DOS". Where I worked, we installed (in
> > 1993, I think) a small network with Novell DOS-7, without any 
> > trouble. The dealer who sold us the computers didn't want to 
> > sell Novell DOS. He warned we'd have all kinds of troubles. Part
> > of that system was still going when I left the company last 
> > August. It worked very well. There were a couple of Windows 
> > networks in the building and they seemed to always have trouble.
> 
>    Yes aye aye to that.  Right from the start of the PC revolution there 
> was a "mind capture", some sort of emotional grip.  When IBM and M$ were 
> together the predisposition was things had to be "IBM compatible".  This 
> wasn't held just by computer dealers but very generally - all sorts of 
> people.  I noticed it amongst professional colleagues in the public 
> service.  After IBM and M$ broke up the bias went to to M$.  *Anything* 
> M$ introduced was eagerly seized by these professional staff - Lotus 123 
> was supplanted by Excel, dBase was supplanted by Foxbase,

FWIW, Microsoft never produced Foxbase--Foxpro was already shipping when 
MS bought the company.  And it was a significant improvement over dBase 
as it made use of the increased address space of the 8088 and was a good 
deal less buggy.  Not to mention ran a good deal faster--getting those 
algorithms was the reason MS bought the company--they later showed up in 
Access.  Wasn't an MS-specific product either--there was a Fox for Unix.

As for 1-2-3, they also made the mistake of resting on their laurels.  
The Windows version was horribly late and the first release was bug 
city.

> Wordstar by 
> Word.

Deservedly.  The producers of Wordstar didn't even recompile the blasted 
thing for the PC, they ported the binary.  Dog slow.  I've seen it 
running on a Z-80 with four users up and better response than the PC 
version.  When laser printers hit and it couldn't do anything with them, 
that was pretty much the end of it.  Company I worked for at the time 
went to Word (DOS Word, not WinWord) solely for the printer support.  I 
finally chucked it myself.  CP/M Wordstar was a great editor.  No 
version of Wordstar that I ever saw was a decent formatter.

> Nothing had the same lean, whether it was Worperfect, the 
> Macintosh let alone DRDOS or OS/2 or CTOS which I was a keen users in 
> those days.
> 
>    OS/2 or eCS still has that emotional barrier to cross to win hitherto 
> non-OS/2 users
> 
>    You could ASK these people why they were so keen on M$ products but 
> you couldn't get any sensible answers.  They just felt at home with the 
> stuff.  Everything else was somehow foreign and the'd shrug their 
> shoulders to any evidence to the contrary.  However, any slight 
> shortcoming in competing products they'd come down on you like a ton of 
> bricks saying "there you are!"  This is even true today amongst 
> different colleagues who are critical of big business.
> 
>    For Australian users, here is the links that David Johnson posted 
> early in the thread:
> 
> http://hobbes.nmsu.edu/cgi-bin/h-search?key=gerstner&pushbutton=Search
> 
> > 
> > I got Warp-3 in August, 1995, from a dealer who had seen Windows
> > 95. I think he was a beta tester. He said I would enjoy OS/2 
> > much more than Windows, and that it was a better system. He was 
> > right.
> > 
> > gwh
> > 
> 
> 

-- 
--
--John
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(used to be jclarke at eye bee em dot net)