As a small example, Yager takes several swipes at the OS/2 Presentation Manager interface:
"The OS/2 desktop is still painted by Presentation Manager, a Windows 3.1 contemporary. The default desktop's root window icons and taskbar menus look haphazardly laid out by a dreadfully disorganized user. Essential functions are buried in submenus, and administrative tools and utilities are scattered and concealed in the pages of anachronistic on-screen notebooks. It is a GUI OS/2 fans have learned to love, but a hard taste to acquire if you are accustomed to Windows 98 or Linux's Gnome."
A "Windows 3.1 contemporary?" Hardly. As any true computer professional knows, OS/2's desktop is far superior than anything coming out of Redmond. The System Object Model (SOM) behind OS/2 provides a true object oriented desktop, the envy of Windows users. As OS/2 users, we have been spoiled by the product's Warp Center, drag and drop, adjustable properties notebooks, and "shadowing"; simple features that are severely crippled in the Windows world. Unlike Windows, OS/2 users can organize the desktop any way their hearts desire. Yager just doesn't get it.
Yager's comments, which may appear innocent to the naive, tip him off as a Windows evangelist thereby making him highly unqualified to review OS/2. I would even go so far as to suggest that he is a Microsoft plant to perpetuate the company's anti-OS/2 crusade.
What is more bothersome here though is that IBM is lethargic in reprimanding InfoWorld and Yager. In the mid-1990's such inflammatory evaluations of OS/2 would cause IBM to respond with terse letters contradicting the author's remarks. But where is the official rebuke of Yager this time around? I haven't seen it yet. Does IBM accept Yager's conclusions? I hope not. OS/2 Warp Server for e-Business is a fine product that can run circles around Windows NT (even during its initial beta-test a few years ago). Its bad enough that IBM doesn't know how to toot its own horn, but its even worse when irresponsible articles written by pseudo-experts go unanswered.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
As you may have heard already, there are a couple of OS/2 specific developments that have surfaced recently:
I have not personally tried these features yet so I cannot in all honesty recommend or reject them (unlike some pseudo-experts I know).
Keep the Faith!
PAST EDITORIALS
Copyright © M&JB 1999
