[Info-vax] OT: IBM to buy Sun

[Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing]

In article <72hli6Fqe08iU6 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>In article <00A88C4D.DC70B50A at ssrl.slac.stanford.edu>,
>	winston at SSRL.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Alan Winston - SSRL Central Computing) writes:
>> In article <72fekdFpmcofU2 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>>>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.  
>> 
>> If by "lame attempt to mimic Microsoft" you mean "joint IBM/Microsoft attempt
>> to develop a superior Windows/DOS superset, which Microsoft lost interest in
>> after they hired Dave Cutler", then yeah.
>
>I think it much more likely they lost interest when they saw themselves
>developing a competitor in the hands of the one company who likely could
>knock their butts right out of the business.
>
>And some people don't think Cutler is really god come back to earth.
>
>> 
>>>It had as much chance of success as Linux does today.
>> 
>> Enormous, you mean, with increasing deployments from handheld to 
>> desktop to data center?  
>
>I must have missed the announcement.  When did Linux push MS out of the
>market?

So "chance of success" you meant "chance to destroy MS".  I misunderstood; 
I'd say Linux has seriously undercut MS revenues and has been very successful
by any standard, but not that that it has been successful in destroying MS.

-- Alan