[Info-vax] OT: IBM to buy Sun

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <gpvohp$a5r$1 at pechter.motzarella.org>,
	pechter at bandit.pechter.dyndns.org.pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) writes:
> In article <72fekdFpmcofU2 at mid.individual.net>,
> Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>In article <gptds3$q8$1 at lnx107.hrz.tu-darmstadt.de>,
>>	m.kraemer at gsi.de (Michael Kraemer) writes:
>>> In article <72eqiuFpiqmpU1 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill
>>> Gunshannon) writes:
>>>>  
>>>> Comparing OS/2 to VMS is like comparing a Yugo to a Porsche.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm not so familiar with cars (especially US ones),
>>
>>Ummm...   Neither of those is American.
>>
>>> so I guess in this analogy OS/2 would be the Porsche:
>>> it's lean, fast, has an own distinctive GUI 
>>> and runs on my Thinkpad which I can take
>>> with me anytime I want to.
>>
>>And to think people here think I am the one who is anti-VMS.
>>
>>Porsche's are anything but lean.  They do perfoem well, but then,
>>depending on your criteria, so does VMS.  OS/2 was a lame attempt
>>to mimic Microsoft.  It had as much chance of success as Linux
>>does today.
>>
> 
> Oh come on.   A lame attempt to mimic Microsoft.  Get real.
> 
> OS/2 was a solid attempt at a real OS for the PC.  Microsoft was still
> shipping WinNT 3.x when OS/2's Workplace shell blew it away in terms of 
> ease of use and simplicity.
> 
> I was with IBM when they were pushing Warp3 and later Warp4.
> There was nothing out there that was as advanced.

And yet, where are they today?

> 
> They had X11, TCP/IP, NFS... they didn't "embrace and extend" the standards
> they implemented them.

So did MS.  Just because very few people did them, doesn't mean they
weren't available on Windows.  I run DOS versions of TCP/IP done by
MS almost every day.  X11 was not high on Windows list of interests
but that seemed to be because they spcifically did not see the value
in remote display adn were happy with their own way of doing things.
There were, however, third party X11 solutions dating back to MSDOS
days.

> 
> The only problem was they got their clock cleaned when the Microsoft Office
> suite became the business standard and Microsoft walked away from the 
> Win32s "standard for compatibility."

So what, IBM couldn't match them?  It definitely had a foot in more
businesses doors than MS at that point in time.

> 
> Everytime Microsoft changed their API IBM had to go out and figure out how to 
> keep it working in OS/2.

So, it wasn't really superior, it was following MS every step of the way,
which is what I said in the first place.

> 
> Also, the resources required -- mainly memory -- had a higher footprint than
> Win3.x and NT3.x.

And, given the cost of hardware at the time, not a sign of a better product.

So, what part of OS/2 wasn't better did I miss?

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>