Re: Hating Microsoft (was: Rejuvenation of Apple)

Mark Grant (mark@unicorn.com)
Fri, 3 Jan 1997 20:26:50 +0000


On Thu, 2 Jan 1997, Michael Lorrey wrote:

> The death of OS/2 had a lot more to do with predatory fear at IBM over
> being dominated by its onetime subcontractor.

And the fact that although the design of OS/2 1.x was technically better
than Windows 3.x, the early versions were no better in reality (e.g. OS/2
1.2 (AFAIR) which was unable to print anything) and didn't even come with
the few minor applications that Windows provided, like Write and
Solitaire. It also required more RAM at a time when RAM was extremely
expensive.

Finally, as far as I'm aware, Windows NT grew out of the OS/2 NT project
to produce OS/2 2.0. Given the relative lack of success of NT as compared
to Windows 3.x and 95, that tends to imply that OS/2 NT would have done no
better.

So IMHO the blame for Windows' success rests at least as strongly on IBM
as Microsoft. Of course, if OS/2 had been more successful then people
would hate IBM rather than Microsoft.

Mark

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