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From: Owner-OS2News@teamos2.org

Subject: OS2News: Down to the Wire Awards '95

InfoWorld
   
January 29, 1996
     
Miscues, miscalculations, and Warp Connect: the Down to the Wire awards

     Despite popular demand, I now present you with the Down to the Wire
     Awards for 1995. But don't settle for my opinions. Send me your own
     nominations, and I'll print the best of the submissions when we
     publish our Readers' Choice Awards.
     
     Biggest opportunities missed: Novell gets this award for ignoring
     the value of UnixWare and WordPerfect. SCO now has the opportunity
     to do something with UnixWare (though it's probably too late for
     UnixWare to reach its original potential). WordPerfect has all but
     died of neglect. Novell also gets the Best Garage Sale award for
     the year.
     
     Sleeper product of the year: Symantec's Norton Navigator for
     Windows 95. At least it looks like it's always falling asleep. One
     thing is for sure: You'll get plenty of rest using this product.
     The time it takes to switch from one virtual desktop to another,
     for example, is excruciating.
     
     Best product design from Microsoft: The Microsoft Network. With
     only a few annoying exceptions, I've found the user interface to
     MSN to be better conceived than America Online's and CompuServe's,
     though the latter still boast better content.
     
     Worst product implementation from Microsoft: The Microsoft Network.
     When it became obvious that Windows 95 would break under the load
     of too many threads, the Microsoft Network software was emasculated
     and usability went down the tubes. The latest update is improved,
     but the beta versions were the best.
     
     Most frequent annoying message: "Please wait while we add new art
     to AOL." (America Online 2.5, though the message is backward
     compatible.) Runner-up: "This program has performed an illegal
     operation and will be shut down." (Microsoft Windows 95.)
     
     Feel-good software of the year: Syncronys Softcorp's SoftRAM 95.
     Nothing makes you feel better than to know you're doing something
     to prevent RAM cram under Win95.
     
     Feel-bad software of the year: SoftRAM 95. This only applies to
     those of you who found out it was a placebo and you wasted your
     money.
     
     Bogus calculation of the year: Speaking of placebos, Matt Pietrek
     exposed a whopper in Windows 95 System Programming Secrets,
     published by IDG Books. Windows 95 is kludged to make you think you
     start with more free system resources than you used to have in
     Windows 3.x. Unlike Windows 3.x, Windows 95 starts to calculate
     resources after you finish loading the desktop, and it considers
     that figure as 100 percent free system resources.
     
     Most overhyped technology of the year: World Wide Web browsers.
     Novell is even trying to use Web pages as an E-mail interface.
     Sheesh. Welcome to an E-mail interface with the kind of speed and
     usability last seen on 286 machines running Windows 2.0.
     
     Most overhyped product of the year: Microsoft Windows 95. 'Nuf
     said.
     
     Most underhyped product of the year: IBM OS/2 for the Power PC.
     After endless anticipation and speculation (and almost immediately
     after a major trade journal predicted the project would be
     canceled), IBM completed OS/2 for the Power PC in December 1995 but
     forgot to tell anyone about it until mid-January. IBM is limiting
     availability of OS/2 Power PC for fear someone might actually buy
     it.
     
     Blatant lie of the year: Warp Connect is evidence of IBM's
     long-term corporate strategy for OS/2. The fact is, IBM doesn't
     have a long-term strategy when it comes to OS/2. Warp Connect was
     slapped together when, much to IBM's surprise, single-user Warp
     sold well in its first months.
     
     Most likely to emerge as a leader in the use of speech recognition:
     Voice Pilot Technologies. Voice Pilot may have been the world's
     lousiest personal information manager for OS/2, but it incorporated
     some of the world's best tricks in using speech recognition
     technology. Rich Grant, the genius behind Voice Pilot, added Bill
     Schindler to the staff in 1995. Bill is a brilliant programmer who
     can fill in the gaps the company had in understanding what a user
     interface should be. Look for some surprises to come from Voice
     Pilot in 1996 and beyond.
     
     Product most likely to be discontinued: IBM will abandon OS/2 Warp
     several more times this year. Well, to be honest, that probably
     won't happen. But it's the national pastime of the trade press to
     predict OS/2's demise, and I understand I could lose my Clark Kent
     press hat if I don't cooperate.
     
     Best-kept secret: Speaking of which, OS/2 gained hundreds of new
     applications last year. The trade press continues to perpetuate the
     Microsoft prosperity myth and talk about how OS/2 flopped as a
     consumer product, but companies such as Stardock Systems, (maker of
     several hot OS/2 applications, including some OS/2 games that have
     outsold DOS games), cried about it all the way to the bank in 1995.
     
     Biggest flop of the year: Microsoft's attempts to kill OpenDoc.
     Look for the war to escalate.
     
     Best-perpetuated myth: Windows NT is catching on like wildfire as
     an Internet server platform. Unix still has the lion's share of the
     market, by a long shot. In fact, when you consider NT market share
     is still dwarfed by installations of Linux and the Macintosh, it
     makes you wonder who originated this pinnacle of bogusosity.
     
     Product most often redefined: Windows 95 succeeded Windows NT to
     the throne in this category. First Windows 95 was a consumer OS.
     Then it was hyped as the modern savior of corporate computing and
     released along with numerous aids for corporate rollouts.
     Unfortunately, corporations didn't roll it out. Then a number of
     reliability, installation, and networking problems surfaced along
     with a handful of boring 32-bit applications. Microsoft dubbed
     Windows 95 a consumer/small-office/home-office OS once again and
     graciously conceded the corporate desktop to NT (which, ironically,
     started out as an upgrade to Windows 3.1).
     
     Product most likely to be redefined again: Windows 95, of course.
     It will regain corporate status when folks begin to complain about
     how much more difficult it is to migrate to Windows NT. Microsoft
     will "solve" the performance problem of NT by moving the graphics
     engine into the kernel. Unfortunately, this will break the
     stability of Windows NT. Expect Windows 95 to continue to flip back
     and forth between consumer and corporate OS as these developments
     occur.
     
   ..... send E-mail via the Internet at nicholas_petreley@infoworld.com
                                      
             Copyright (c) 1996 by InfoWorld Publishing Company