EDITOR's NOTE: Francois is on assignment this month and will return soon. However, Anthony van Zyl of the Gauteng OS/2 User Group filed the following report:
Hello quiet OS/2 users...
I was meaning to post this message a while ago. Better late than never. We had our User Group meeting on 15 August specifically scheduled to coincide with the visit of Andrew Howarth (I think that was his surname) who is in charge of IBM software sales for Europe, Africa and Asia. It was a great meeting with a turnout of 50 users including some IBM staff and went on till late with hot discussions over pizza and beer afterwards. After some rather poor attendance of our user group over the last two or three meetings, this was great motivation for us OS/2 users who sometimes wonder where we stand.
If you read the last Editorial of OS/2 CONNECT by Tim Bryce, his biggest gripe about IBM is that they're not interested in their users. He says that they don't LISTEN to their users, despite all sorts of approaches and ventures (e.g., "Connect the World with Merlin" project). Well, it was really great for us to have a Q & A session with Andrew. And believe me, the OS/2 users did not hold back. Hopefully South Africans can look forward to improved OS/2 software distribution in the future.
IBM is very proud that their market share in banking has gone up and I have heard the news from various sources. Of course, Andrew mentioned this as well. However, the OS/2 user group retaliated by saying that Microsoft is clawing away at the peripheries, surrounding the IBM hold and one day strangling it, even in the banks. This is because so many of the users at banks run Microsoft at home and they want familiar machines at work. The general opinion was that IBM had a false security in their banking stronghold and several members of the user group from big corporates (for example First National Bank, ABSA) attested to the great pressure from users to move to Microsoft and that their companies were slowly moving to a Microsoft solution.
Obviously Andrew was put in a corner, bragging about IBM's market share, only to be shot down. To ease the tension, he came up with an IBM joke which many of you probably have heard, but I hadn't yet so will share it here....
Lou has been under a lot of pressure lately (probably due to us OS/2 users!) and goes to his doctor. His doctor says that he must start relaxing, go for walks around IBM's fancy gardens at headquarters, etc. His suggestion was to buy a dog. So Lou gets himself a dog and one day while walking his dog he gets to one of the lakes around the headquarters. He picks up a stick and throws it in! The dog rushes for the lake, walks over the water, picks up the stick and walks back! Lou can't believe this so he throws the stick again. Again the dog walks over the water, picks up the stick and walks back. Lou rushes back to his office, calls his secretary and tells her to organize a huge press conference for the next day at the lake edge. The next day there is a huge gathering of pressman, cameras, TV cameras, journalists, etc at the lake side with Lou and his dog. Lou picks up the stick and throws it into the water and the dog walks over the water to fetch it. The cameras go wild, the journalists are scribbling in their pads, and all the microphones point at Lou. Lou tells the pressman that he has nothing to say, just write something good about IBM. When he gets back to his office, he tells his secretary to get all the papers tomorrow and put them on his desk. The next day, he gets to work early, gets into his office, keen to see what the press had to say. However, the desk is empty!! Furious he rushes out to his secretary and there she stands there holding up the paper headlines and they say "LOU'S DOG CAN'T SWIM!"
The bottom line to the story is in the press and users eyes, IBM just can't do anything right, even when the figures show upward trends!
My personal view is that we will have to wait and see if the Microsoft infections along the edges aren't going eat away the whole apple!
I hope you all enjoy your OS/2 still as much as I do!
Best regards,
Anthony van Zyl
Please do not hesitate to send Francois van der Merwe any news and information pertaining to South Africa you would like mentioned in this column.
Francois van der Merwe was the South African Country Coordinator
for the "Connect the World with Merlin" project. He is also an
active member of the OS/2 Users Group in Cape Town and Team OS/2.