The purpose of this section is to provide a forum for our readers to voice their opinions and thoughts on issues related to OS/2. If you have an observation, concern, gripe or compliment regarding something, please feel free to send them to the OS/2 CONNECT editor for inclusion in this section, at: Title & Publisher or complete the form at the bottom of this page.
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I agree with Andrea Scagni ("Sound Off!," November issue), maybe we should start a petition page to get Connectix to start writing a Wins32 software app for OS/2. While I truly believe that the programmers working on OS/2 probably support our beliefs, they must work on what their told to by managment. Being an IBM employee myself, I KNOW how it works. I have had to give up OS/2 on my laptop for Win95 last month, as OS/2 was just to much work to support internally (the people that put togeather our system package were clueless!) We were given Warp3 FP-17 on a 360p laptop, 340mb HD, 12mb RAM, and the drive was Stacked. It was also set up as using FAT.. and then they complained that it was way too slow! (Can you say swap bound?). There was only 12 mb HD free for swapper.dat!! and all the apps were Win 3.1 or DOS. So now I suffer thru endless Win95 pnp conflicts, endless networking problems ect. It is really sad when your own company dosn't support their own software product internally. By the way, we were given new laptops for Win95..380d, 48mb RAM, 1.3gb HD, etc. So now everyone say's, "See how much better, and FASTER, Win95 runs than OS/2 did!" All I can do is shake my head. So lets petition Connectix, as IBM isn't going to do it for us...
I too am frustrated with the lack of applications but have been able to get by with Win31 apps for WP and SS type stuff. However, the companies with whom I do business (mainly Life Insurers and Mutual Fund companies) are beginning to churn out Win95 type apps. Since I must use them. I need an OS that will run them in order to continue to earn a living. In the meantime, I have started to look for someone to set up a WWWeb site for me (one of whom was in the OS/2 user group). Although I have specified OS/2 as the platform, it appears impossible to get the proper tools to do this in an OS/2 environment. So add my name to the Win32 petition, in the "Be quick about it" section. As for the comment about IBM's foray into the home market being ill-advised and the home consumer not being smart enough to know when (s)he is being snowed, I suggest that the opposite is true. The home consumer WAS smart enough to know the (s)he didn't want her/his software obliterated. At the same time, the team of IBMers who, in spite of infinite wisdom, were completely snowed by the tricksters from the ad agency. I trust all involved have been suitably rewarded.
Quite some time ago I started out with OS/2 v1.1 and upgraded each version as it was released. I wrote a fair number of utilities, (for my own use mainly) and stayed with OS/2 as long as I could but about a year of so ago I became very frustrated with OS/2 and its deficiencies (in software as well as the OS) and even though I wretched at the thought, I got Win NT 4.0 installed and guess what; it is a very nice system, quite configurable and oh boy is there software. Of course it suffers from that awful gloat that befall all systems now, but that is a different problem. OS/2, at least to me, was not very stable, and it hung up a lot. Even Process Commander did not help very much. Anyhow just to be sure, recently after getting Drive Image (as protection) I reinstalled OS/2 Warp4, DOS and Linux on my system, all bootable from PQMagic's debugged BootManager. I find NT to really be superior and I am afraid that IBM's support for OS/2 would not do much. They have made some very bad design mistakes, that have never been corrected - the worst of course is the single input Queue, and from that all the rest of their problems stem. It is beating a dead horse to try and get them to do anything. They even haven't implemented long file names for OS/2 under FAT (WinNT does) which in itself brings along a lot of other baggage. Its too bad. They had their chance and blew it time and time again. They should have hired Gates instead of Gerstner
After reading your magazine last night I did some thinking. IBM seems to be targeting small businesses with it's TV commercials. Well, I AM ONE OF THOSE SMALL BUSINESSES!!! Back when I was setting things up, I chose OS/2 for its ability to multitask and the coolness of the WPS. Now its a couple of years later and my Warped web server is hosting a whole bunch of domain names on a single IP address! IBM doesn't seem to realize they should be targeting more folks like me. People who want to set up a very stable profitable web site hosting service out of their home. I've got customers from all over the USA, Denmark, and even South Africa. My OS/2 server just keeps on going and going. I wish they understood that there are a LOT of folks like me and my small business is doing great things with OS/2 Warp!
I think the key idea to get across to IBM is that if they don't want to do the Win95 support, they have to throw out some small seed money or personal support to the fanatics who are willing to do anything to get the OS to work. Maybe in the form of paid visits to IBM. Had they done this in the past, the situation would be radically different today. We suffer with lack of resources at the university all the time and still manage to get things done - maybe IBM should have the equivalent of a virtual OS/2 university to collect and support all the people who want to help out.
I switched to OS/2 from the MS OS's because OS/2 provides a highly stable platform. However, should IBM continue to abandon its PC and small networking customer base, I will switch to NT. I am particularly frustrated at IBM's abandonment of voice recognition development for OS/2. I see continuous speech offered for the MS community by IBM -- but not for its OS/2 customers. This and similar snafus are very hard to understand, and do not enhance customer loyalty.
In last month's editorial you wrote:
"Mike Persell of IBM was the most down-to-earth guy I've ever met from a big company since Frank Ingari left Lotus. We had a 45-minute private chat and I'll spill the beans right now:
1. He's disappointed that we OS/2 supporters are so dependent on IBM for everything. 'Don't whine, don't beg, ASK and you WILL RECEIVE' was his message. In other words, we need to learn to develop serious business-case proposals for what we need from IBM, and stop whining and complaining. WE must make the first move, and Mike will go to bat for us."
I guess what disturbs me about this 'Don't whine, don't beg, ASK and you WILL RECEIVE' comment is that it is simply not true. Admittedly, nobody likes to listen to people harangue about problems, particularly vendors. But in contrast, people do not like it when they think their voice is not being heard. When we published the OS/2 Product Priority List a few months ago, where was IBM's response? The silence was deafening. It is my belief that IBM is simply not interested in suggestions for product improvement from its customer base. They have a bit of Microsoft's arrogance in that they believe they can dictate what the market wants which may explain why IBM provides superficial support for user group activities; after all, such coalitions establish a collective voice that IBM doesn't want to hear in terms of product development. By providing limited support to OS/2 user groups, IBM believes they can divide and conquer its customers.
I think you picked up one important point that I believe, namely that IBM is not interested in listening to the consumers needs, but there is a reason why they don't, which becomes ever more apparent every time they try to explain their position.
Some comments, first, on Persell's remarks: Don't whine, don't beg, ASK and ye WILL RECEIVE(!?) You know, when I have a product that I want to sell, and somebody wants to give me money for it, I really don't care what their attitude is. IBM, apparently and strangely, does.
I cannot understand this, but it confirms what I've long felt: IBM has the roles of vendor/buyer exactly reversed - THEY'RE the ones who should be luring, enticing and yes, begging ME to buy their product. But they don't. They seem to think that they are the ones dispensing favors, instead of asking for them! I doubt if IBM will seriously meet our needs as long as their people think that they are in a position to go to bat for us. Not that I would not want them to, it's just I don't think that model of business will ever produce results for the consumer.
Why? Because IBM is operating in the large corporate model. Under this model, and in my imaginary, but I think fairly accurate scenario,when an insurance company or a government agency, say, wants something from IBM, they would have the MIS department develop all the parameters, specs, quantities, guidelines etc, and then they present it to IBM to implement. IBM is virtually guaranteed a market before they ever spend a dime on the project.
This is like the highway construction market. No contractor goes to the state trying to persuade them that they ought to build a road in such and such a place. Rather, the state delivers the guaranteed project when it sends out the call for bids, and the contractor's job is merely to convince the state that he is the best one to do the work.
But this is not the market we consumers comprise. MS knows this and acts accordingly, but IBM does not. MS does not so much dictate what the market wants, but rather finds out what the market wants and then dictate how they are going to get it, or, loosely put, MS dictates after it discovers the needs/wants of the market.
IBM, on the other hand, seems to have no conception of market research as understood by the entrepreneur, or in a consumer oriented market, and this, I think is the sense in which they have no marketing sense (Of course, their ads weren't so hot either). They don't even DO market research to find out what products will satisfy the needs of their customers.
They want US to "develop serious business-case proposals." I'm sorry, sir, that's YOUR job, to figure out how to make something that people will buy. At least it is outside the corporate/government model.
IBM cannot even understand that I don't have access to the resources to develop a serious business-case proposal -- I don't have 10,000 workstations to network, and therefore I can't guarantee you a big project. And as an SOHO user, I can't spend $1000 per year for a support contract which other vendors offer for the price of the toll call it takes to get to their support departments, or, in some cases for which they charge only $35 per incident.
But I can tell you that I have $1000 to $5000 or so to spend on application software, which I WILL spend on applications that can replace my Win 3.1 applications, or better yet on an operating system (but not one that costs $3000) that will run all Win 95/NT apps.
In the meantime I will settle for a Warp 4 Win-OS/2 full-screen session that will run my WinFax Pro setup as trouble-free as my Warp 3 system does. Translated, that means I would like complete Win 3.1 compatibility from a system which has the full, licensed the 3.1 code built in.
And I can tell you that there are thousands of people who feel the same way, and, I'll bet (but that's your job, to take a gambling risk) that there are millions who would come on board the ship once it's built. That's my "business-case proposal"; the kind IBM wants was tried, after a fashion, with little success -- whatever happened to the idea put forth on the Best of OS/2 page several months ago, to collect input of all the individual users of Warp so as to form a unified corporate entity with which IBM could then deal as a distinct corporate-equivalent? You see, we whine, and beg, and even try to do it their way, but I think it's impossible to get what we want given IBM's Fortune 500 model.
I've just given IBM many thousands of dollars worth of marketing advice. They may not take it. After all, when they sell 11 billion dollars worth of software to Microsoft's 3 billion, why should they? But I hope they do. And I hope there is some way of getting what we want out of IBM. Really I do!!
I think IBM has 2 choices with OS/2 (short of dropping it totally).
First: Concentrate on the larger organizations (IBM's forte). This will eventually lead to having to cope with trying to sell OS/2 and OS/2 apps (where will they come from?) to users who have never heard of them, but do know of Microsoft and all the hundreds of apps that will run on WinXX. I suspect that this will put IBM in the same situation as was Canute, particularly if there is no competing source of applications. It appears to be what is happening now.
Second: Put some effort into growing the market-share of smaller users. This will keep the OS/2 name in the public eye and grow the idea that OS/2 exists and works - avoiding the inevitable result of the first choice. To do this will need applications! It doesn't matter whether they are native apps or Win32 apps - there must be applications. What is the use of an OS which doesn't have any useful applications? Precisely!
The situation is pretty bad now. In fact, I recently told a Win95 multimedia (heavy) user that I use OS/2; his immediate response was "You poor fellow!"
IBM have got to support smaller users, and particularly developers who will deliver OS/2 apps, or the situation will get worse.
If the situation gets worse, IBM will have lost the desktop, and be well on the way to losing the network (simply because they will have to push uphill to market unfamiliar products to users who know Windows).
In my line of work you need to have support. I urge IBM to listen to the voice of the customers and act.
Without support we are nothing. Without OS/2 we have no use for the robust, tightly coded DOS programs we've tried to run with reliability and speed under NT and 95, because bad os = bad and flakey performance.
I noticed in your editorial that you wrote that the Win32-OS/2 project was "headed up by Timur Tabi" which is incorrect the head of the project (and the author of the converter) is Sander van Leeuwen.
EXCUSE ME!!?? Upon reading the Tech section of ZD's Computer Shopper today I was amazed to see in their article about Windoze 98 a very familiar sight!!! The desktop on the second page middle of the article looked just like my OS2 Conections window next to my Netscape window the ONLY diferance was the IE logo and the start bar on the bottom of the screen.
I would like to know how long the DOJ is going to let MickeySoft steal other peoples product ideas and get away with it. I have been an OS/2 user for several years now and think it quite absurd that OS/2 and Apple lead the way and MS gets the credits for being "The first 32 bit OS, the first multitasking(???)" and now the first net-centric OS," I don't think so!!!
There is a marketing strategy which actually has a high probability of increasing the OS/2 user base. Ironically this strategy has already been attempted, albeit in an obviously ineffective implementation. This is the better DOS than DOS and the better Windows than Windows. There are legions of Windows users who have DOS/Win3.x based games and applications that they have difficulty running under Win95 (and possibly even more so under Win98). If OS/2 were placed on the shelves as just another program that enabled users to keep Win95 on their desktop and run most of their "obsolete" software that they may have invested heavily in, this would represent an attractive option. Emphasizing that users can keep Win95 with dual boot or Boot Manager will have less of a chance of frightening away people who have no experience outside the Windows environment. Of course the data base of DOS games and their requisite settings would have to be upgraded (not to mention device drivers also). An OS/2 lite version would probably be more likely to sell since if you have Win95 already installed your disk capacity may severely challenged by the bloated Win apps. After experiencing the more stable OS/2 system which can breathe new life into their DOS/Win3.x programs undoubtedly a significant percentage will migrate to OS/2 full time especially when they are made aware of the powerful bundled programs.
When I said, "ask IBM for something," I should have clarified it somewhat. The way we have been asking is wrong. IBM is not interested in winning a popularity contest; they want to know why a particular feature will be a money maker. In other words, we should not "ask IBM" by giving them a petition or a bunch of letters begging for a feature or a fix; we should make a business case to them.
We need to mature in our relationship with IBM, and stop thinking of IBM as our rich uncle. We should think of IBM as a prospective business partner, and show them the bottom-line reason for any request we make. If they don't see the dollar signs, then we probably won't get the response we want. Let's learn *How* to ask IBM for what we want.
EDITOR's NOTE: Frankly, we have made the "business case", documented it thoughly, and submitted it to IBM for consideration - all to no avail; this was the whole idea behind the OS/2 Product Priority Lists we ran earlier this year. Please do not be conned by IBM; they really couldn't care less what the customer thinks.
I have been running OS/2 for 10 years. My two favorite aspects are that my systems never crash and that it multitasks better than any MS OS. I was at WarpStock, it was great! The two thoughts are that one, if Win95 apps run under OS/2, developers will stop coding 32 bit OS/2 apps. The 2nd is that if Win95 apps do not appear we will eventually disappear from the earth! I think we should continue on the Java move and add support for Win95 apps.
Please continue OS/2 development/support for 'private use/small machines'. Extension to support Win32 would be welcomed warmheartedly, although I realize that the ever changing API's of Microsoft will make this a difficult task and OS/2 will always be behind in this area. However, a limited delay will be acceptable.
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