IBM says it won't give up on OS/2

Well, yea, they'll sell it to you. And you can buy technical support for it.

So it is alive in the same sense that Walt Disney, who allegedly had his head cryogenically frozen just before being pronounced dead is alive.

I agree Brad. I thought that it was quite funny. We will sell you the OS but will not support any of the programs that run on the OS that we developed.

I used to be one of those annoying geeks trying to talk everybody out of using Windows 3.1 .

I miss OS/2 (:(

Don't believe the hype - I worked for IBM recently for a few years and they ARE phasing it out - they keep the above spin up because they still have customers paying for support of OS/2.

It's a shame. I used OS/2 a lot before Win95 - of course, that was before Warp.

Interesting. There would appear to be some truth to what Star Ranger says based on what we see as users, but what I saw from the data base side of IBM was lots of customers using it and IBM building new releases (of course, unless you have a server supporting a number of work stations, then you would not want to pay the extra over Windows for it). I know a version 5 was released and I think I had heard something about a version 6 before I retired, but these were not intended for home use. More recently I heard some talk about an effort to get Linix(sc) geared up to replace OS/2 for servers.

If anyone was to try to get version 5 for an IBM PC intended for home use (e.g., games, intense graphics, etc.) then they would have a rough time getting drivers for the graphics, sound, and modem adapters, as the makers of those cards do not provide support for OS/2.

Your absolutely right -Lucky Jack - IBM is becoming the biggest Linux shop (or trying to) in town.

Why Linux you ask? It's just a way to be more competitive on pricing (without having to pay royalty or licensing fees).

hot off the press - check this out - looks like the nails are going in the coffin for OS/2 Warp.

link #1
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=6667

Link #2
http://www.amdzone.com/

(it's mid way on the page)


For those who don't want to go to the page -

IBM waves goodbye to OS/2 operating system

Warp Factor 2003

By Mike Magee: Wednesday 11 December 2002, 08:14


ALTHOUGH IBM'S OS/2 has certainly been low profile for the last 10 years or so, the company has quietly supported and even upgraded and tweaked the operating system.
But now it looks as thought the writing may finally be on the wall.

A notice posted yesterday by IBM said that on the 12th of March 2003, IBM will stop marketing OS/2 Warp V4 and Warp Server for e-business programs.

Program services will be available until December 31st, 2004.

The full list of products that IBM is withdrawing is here.

A real shame. OS/2 was (is) superior to windows 3.1/9.x. I was able to:
- format 2 floppies at work while using k-edit to read a 100mb report
- play Sid Meiser's Civ (dos ver) in a window on my desktop
- GalCiv2 ran much better on my 486-66 than it does now on my 1.8ghz
Is there a paper explaining why os/2 died and windows conquered the world? (similar story: VHS vs Beta VCR formats)
In 1994, I had numerous phone conversations with a marketing VP at IBM to ask why they not were pushing os/2 over windows 3.x. The windows' user at work found os/2 ran their apps faster then windows. Us programers used it for mainframe access, development (microfocus) and file transfers. 1994 was the make/break year for os/2 and I never understood why IBM let it die.

OS/2 was our desktop of choice for years, but as MS apps became
the defacto choice of business and they crashed and burned under OS/2's windows emulation, a decision was made to replace all OS/2 desktop machines with Windows and Lanserver servers with Novell. I personally liked OS/2 far more than win 3.1.....but once buggy old Win95 showed up, I sort of jumped ship. Unix remains my prefered OS though, as I use Solaris all day at work and run a server at home using Free BSD. Used to admin a bunch of HPUX machines too.

OS/2 was owned inside IBM by the networking division...
This can let you understand a lot...

IBM never had a consumer mindset. IBM is Enterprises best friend and knows how to work with and satisfy them more than anyone else in the long term and across the board.

Missing applications were a big problem not solved with Lotus buyout (IBM bought Lotus for Notes). Do you know Sun's StarOffice comes from an IBM Germany division?

Many IBMers never belived in OS/2 even when it was the best. They never gave it a chance. It was easier to show the customer to be "open minded" and sell just PCs (more $$) then push hard for also selling the OS (very few $$). No vision in sales, no forced vision from top Mgmt.

OS/2 never had a father like Bill :VOMIT: Gates meeting with top customers just to sell Windows 95 :VOMIT: even investing in their shares to get them. He had the strategy and the vision. IBM had-has too many product lines. This can be an advantage here and a disadvantage there... Bill is still playing the domino game and with President Bush he has good hands to be left free to play hardball.

Today, if I was a country (not USA), I would had never allowed my PCs/embedded/console/radar run Win-anything. Too many bugs, too many security holes, too many unknown "features". I'd rather had developed a secure-linux opensourced to know every possible detail of it and be sure it's not somebody's ears and eyes.

Gherardo -

I'm not sure I agree with you - when I worked for IBM, many people theree believed that OS/2 Warp was superior to Windows - but what they found was the same demise as apple computers - no one (their customers) wanted to be the trail blazer that bought an operating system that was incompatable with windows and had very few applications made for it.

So what ended up is that some companeis did buy it (very few) but manly for back end processing (OS/2 was more stable than windows).

The other nail is that they just released DB2 for Linux. It's clear that there are far more Linux users than OS/2 now and there is probably only room for one Windoze competitor in the Intel market right now.

Still, if I ever decide to put my PCBoard BBS back up, it will be Warp 4 and SIO that drive it.

DaveO,

I wouln't put much stock on DB2 for Linux as a measure of an OS's success or demise. DB2 has had a pollicy of running on ALL viable platforms since before I joined their development team in 1994.

Maybe we can look at Serenity Systems job... i know they can do a lot more... and i know they will, the eCS (OS/2 based operating System) is getting good. That's my opinion, of course you can get another one... BTW, it came with Stellar Frontier shipped.
Greetings