🚀 go-pugleaf

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:

>In article <28808@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@pepsi.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) writes:

>| The problem is all the lazy software houses who haven't bothered to move
>| to OS/2 and take advantage of the 16 meg protected mode even though the
>| 286 can handle it just fine.

>  Wait a minute. Why would any company trying to make a profit go to
>OS/2? There are so few users that they would be lucky to cover the cost
>of a new version of the compiler, much less cover their labor,
>packaging, stocking, and labor costs. And lucky to get enough ongoing
>income to cover the maintenence.

Also, don't forget that while 286 and 386 machines are "sexy", the most
common platform is still the 8088/8086! See what happens when you suggest
to a customer that you write the software for OS/2 instead of for DOS. He
likes it right up the point where you tell him that it'll only run on
286 machines with several meg of RAM.

The company I work for has been buying *nothing* but 286 machines and
386 machines for several years now. That means that about the middle
of last year we got to the point where we had more 286/386 machines
than PCs and XTs (and I'm talking True Blue Pcs and XTs!). 

You have no idea how limited you can be by this sort of thing. Just
replacing them with 286 machines with 1 meg is going to take a minimum
of 2-3 years unless we make some sort of breakthrough in convincing the
poeople that have to sign the capital request (100 286 machines cost a
*lot* if you aren't willing to go with "Joe's clones" or the like).

Hell, we've got machines that aren't even *reliable* and it's been an uphill
fight to get them to let us buy replacements. "But they can still use
them, can't they?" <sigh> Sure. The machine only screws up once or twice
a week. And they rarely lose anything except time and patience. But there's
no way we are going to waste the money on *motherboard* problems on a PC.
That was what it took to convince them. All the micro support people
flatly told our new manager that repairs other than board swaps were
a waste of time and money on a PC. And since there aren't any spare
motherboars, no cost effectice means getting any...

THAT is why OS/2 won't catch on very fast. You have to wait for a
company's invest in machines that can't run it to go away.
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short