[Info-vax] Life after Digital

[JF Mezei]

Michael Kraemer wrote:

> That's what happened a decade later.
> But at the time M$ and IBM split over that issue
> (must have been around 1993 or so) IBM tried vigorously
> to promote OS/2 against Windows.
> They had the better product, smart marketing ads,
> retailers preloaded it on their PCs etc.
> But "the market", i.e. ISVs, trade press and most customers
> were already biased towards Windoze.
> No marketing dollars, not even from IBM, could change that.


Factually correct statements, but contextually incorrect.

The market share of OS-2 actually rose during a couple of years because
Microsoft was late with what was eventually called Windows 95.

But Microsoft launched a marketing juggernaut with Windows 95, a tidal
wave nobody could resist. And everyone had been promised Windows 95
would be solid, robust, trustable.

In the case of VMS, there was no attempt to market it, except in 2000,
the short lived "renaissance" period where modest marketing in selected
countries caused a near 10% rise in sales.

Nobody is saying VMS needs to take over/replace Windows. Apple is quite
profitable and can afford great development and innovations in its
products even though it has less than 5% of the market for computers (I
heard 3.5% but am not sure if this is correct).

Once people reaslised Microsoft wasn't ready for the enterprise, there
were many opportunities for VMS to take back some market share. Doesn't
mean it has to regain its former heydays, but modest gains in sales
would greatly help give it momentum.

Both Linux and Apple started from basically scratch in the late 1990s
and were able to build a very respectable market share AND portfolio of
available applications.

VMS could have done that. Its owners chose to not even try, despite the
"renaissance" providng it was rather easy to get VMS to grow with very
modest marketing.