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.
The opinions expressed in this section are those of the individual writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editor or publisher of OS/2 CONNECT. NOTE: Letters may be edited for inappropriate or offensive language.
The company that I work for produces a plug-in for Netscape and IE that can view live video over the internet. I would like to convince them to make an OS/2 version of this? I would like information about the issues/difficulties of porting something like this from Win95 to OS/2.
EDITOR's REPLY: As much as I would like to see you port directly to OS/2, IBM essentially doesn't care. Instead, they would rather see you port your product to Java which OS/2 accommodates. For more information on Java and OS/2, please refer to the following web sites:
IBM Java Home - http://www.ibm.com/java
IBM Java Development Kit 1.1 for OS/2 - http://service.boulder.ibm.com/jdk/s-feat.htm
IBM's VisualAge for Java - http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/vajava
IBM Centre for Java Technology - http://www.hursley.ibm.com/javainfo/
I have read many comments, letters and suggestions on your site that are requesting IBM to turn OS/2 into Windows 95. Well in essence that is the underlaying requests. I enjoy OS/2 Warp and have some concerns but I would not like to see IBM turn it into or make it look like Windows 95. Windows 95 is a very poor system with hordes of problems. I would like to see:
If the users of OS/2 would like to run WINDOWS 95 Apps and have Warp look like Windows 95 then they should buy Windows 95!
(Regarding MI-10000 MAC Support in the OS/2 Product Priority List) I don't understand why you think Macintosh users would be willing to accept an unbelievably slow software implementation of their Mac hardware in OS/2 (or any other OS that tried such an abomination). I would think that any OS that tried would repulse them instead by it's inherent slowness (if not flakiness). Think how painful it is already to even run native Mac 68k code on a Mac PPC! I believe IBM actually did demo something like what you're saying on a version of OS/2 (or was it AIX?) for IBM's Power PC line, but I greatly doubt you'll ever see anything like that for Intel, since such a ploy would always mean a huge performace hit to move from Mac to OS/2 while still maintaining use of native Mac apps (unless they shared a somewhat common underlying architecture, i.e. the PPC)
EDITOR's REPLY: I am puzzled why you would automatically think such an implmentation would be slow. Execution on a true 32-bit platform such as OS/2 should greatly improve speed as opposed to execution in the MAC 16-bit world. Besides, this would be a way to marry applications on to one platform: OS/2, Java, Windows, and DOS.
It's nice to be listened to even if the IBM product managers may not look here.
I would put full Win32 at the top of the list as that would make it plausible to keep installing OS/2 machines around here (and I dread the day when I am asked to support a Windows 95 machine).
My second item would be SMP for Warp 4.
Thanks for listening.
I read your article (July) about your plight with buying a ThinkPad from IBM. Your story seems so frightfully typical these days.
I especially liked the part about being a "problem solver" as opposed to rationalizing an inability to do the job you're supposed to do. (I learned long ago that it takes more to do it the wrong way.)
Now, I really have TWO burning questions: Did you pay for the Windows95 license? Did you ask for a discount on the ThinkPad because you don't use that stuff? I would really like to know!
EDITOR's REPLY: As to the Windows95 license, first I asked about a cedit for it (since I didn't want it) and was quickly dismissed out of hand, a sort of 'take it or leave it' proposition. Consequently, I received the ThinkPad with the license. As an aside, I couldn't believe the amount of M$ garbage loaded on the ThinkPad. In all, it took up about 800mb of my 1.2gb hard drive. I completely reformatted the disk and started from scratch. I now have it well loaded with a full complement of OS/2 apps and Lotus SmartSuite. Even after all of this, I still have approximately 900mb of free disk space remaining. I really love OS/2 on the ThinkPad.
For existing versions of OS/2 I would like to see a clear and consice marketing plan for OS/2 for the next five to 10 years. The plan should have public visibiliy. This should include a direct statement for the product's position in the market. As well as how this product fits in with IBM's marketing strategy for NT. A statement of the intended nature of enhancements and a time scale for when these enhancements will be released. This facility should be on-going, so that people can visibly see that things are happening with the product.
Good examples of this include the SUN/Java initiative of releasing Java updates within 90 days of SUN releasing them. By doing the above I belive it would increase positive user perceptions in the value of OS/2.
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