ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) (01/30/91)
In article <4993@lure.latrobe.edu.au> CCMK@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Mark Kosten - Computer Centre, La Trobe Uni.) writes: >eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes: > >Does anyone, particularly from Microsoft and IBM, have any comments, or is >is this a confusion of the original report from last year? > The following is the word from Microsoft about this, as issued on Compuserve. I haven't yet heard much about the press briefing mentioned... other than some comments that it repeated statement from last fall. Now, can anybody figure out what the 11 OS/2 applications referred to are? I count 2 (Word and Excel), or four if you include C and Fortran. ------------ From Micrsoft forums on Compuserve --------------- January 28, 1991, Microsoft's continues to support of OS/2 You may have read or heard about an article in Monday's Wall Street Journal which alleges that Microsoft is dropping support for OS/2. This is untrue. Microsoft remains fully committed to OS/2 in its current release and to the development of new OS/2 releases in the future. Microsoft wants to immediately inform you of this error. Included below is a copy of the press release which Microsoft made Monday denying the Wall Street Journal article. Steve Ballmer, Senior Vice President of System Software will present Systems product and strategy information to members of the trade and business press at a briefing on Tuesday, January 29th. Following this briefing, Microsoft will provide a video tape copy of his presentation and the accompanying slides. We hope these materials will assist in clarifying our ongoing support for OS/2. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= REDMOND, Wash. -- Jan. 28, 1991 -- Microsoft denies the today's Wall Street Journal article alleging that Microsoft is dropping OS/2. Microsoft and IBM are continuing the joint development of OS/2. Microsoft continues to service, support and sell OS/2. Microsoft is continuing to develop applications for OS/2 adding to the 11 OS/2 applications currently available from Microsoft. "The operating system market has multiple segments with varied requirements," said Bill Gates, CEO at Microsoft. "For customers needing high-end capabilities, deploying OS/2 applications or pursuing IBM's SAA direction, we market and support OS/2. We will continue to enhance it in the future and enable it to run Windows applications."Microsoft will outline plans for OS/2 and Windows at a press seminar held at Microsoft on Tuesday. Alan Ballard | Internet: ballard@ucs.ubc.ca University Computing Services | Bitnet: USERAB1@UBCMTSG University of British Columbia | Phone: 604-228-3074 Vancouver B.C. Canada V6R 1W5 | Fax: 604-228-5116
CCMK@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Mark Kosten - Computer Centre, La Trobe Uni.) (01/30/91)
eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes: >My local all-news station just carried an announcement from Microsoft that it >is terminating its OS/2 development program in order to concentrate on its >Windows product. > >No details or followup were added. However, several things are instantly >obvious. > >One is that OS/2 is now effectively dead. Sure, IBM is still working on it --- >but does anybody think even Fortune 500 planning staffs are idiotic enough >to sink money into an OS that never made it to full production status and >has now been dumped by its own designers? > >Two is that the IBM/Microsoft "strategic partnership" is also dead. Given that >the two were making grandiose public plans for OS/2 codevelopment less than >six weeks ago, IBM has to see this decision as a kick in the teeth. Further, >the two no longer have any significant interests in common -- the PC clone >market is well-enough established that Microsoft doesn't *need* IBM anymore. > >Three is that Bill Gates hasn't lost his chutzpah or his eye for the main >chance. He's putting all his eggs in one basket; his company's future now >hangs on Windows. He's gambling that the credibility hit Microsoft takes will >be offset by the gains from being able to concentrate his systems people on >doing one thing well. He is probably correct in both of these judgements; it >remains to be seen whether the original strategic mistake that led to this >pass is so severe that even this best isn't enough to ensure Microsoft's future. > >Four is that UNIX's lock on the general-purpose multi-user market is now secure. >There was never any serious technical challenge from OS/2, but because many >Fortune 500 companies could be conned into overlooking its dependence on the >80x86 line it had a serious psychological impact. Neither DOS nor Windows >can cut it for multi-user use and nothing else has the backing to break into a >maturing market. So UNIX is it. > >Now, of course, we get to watch the feebs in the trade press claim they knew >it all along... Does anyone, particularly from Microsoft and IBM, have any comments, or is is this a confusion of the original report from last year? We desperately need to know!!! Mark Kosten
CCMK@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Mark Kosten - Computer Centre, La Trobe Uni.) (01/31/91)
Thanks to those who responded to the errant report I posted. Whew! After a fair degree of investement (including personal) into OS/2 reports like that can give you the willies! Sure hope it doesn't scare application developers away. Also, In article <1991Jan30.065454.11451@unixg.ubc.ca>, ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) writes: > Now, can anybody figure out what the 11 OS/2 applications referred to are? > I count 2 (Word and Excel), or four if you include C and Fortran. >... > Microsoft is continuing to develop applications for > OS/2 adding to the 11 OS/2 applications currently available from Microsoft. > This is my 'off-the-top-of-my-head' count: C, Fortran, Cobol, Pascal, Basic (?), Softset Tools, Word for OS/2, MS Word 5.5, Excel, Multiplan (?), Lan Manager Mark Kosten
cfreas@csws12.ic.sunysb.edu (Terry Freas) (02/01/91)
In article <1991Jan30.065454.11451@unixg.ubc.ca> ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) writes: >In article <4993@lure.latrobe.edu.au> CCMK@lure.latrobe.edu.au (Mark Kosten - Computer Centre, La Trobe Uni.) writes: >>eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes: >> >>Does anyone, particularly from Microsoft and IBM, have any comments, or is >>is this a confusion of the original report from last year? >> > >The following is the word from Microsoft about this, as issued on Compuserve. >I haven't yet heard much about the press briefing mentioned... other than >some comments that it repeated statement from last fall. > >[press release on Compuserve (MS Forum) deleted] >[...] it to run Windows applications."Microsoft will outline plans for OS/2 >and Windows at a press seminar held at Microsoft on Tuesday. will and held in the same sentence? Did this occur already or not? Either way, can someone post a summary? I'm very interested in Gatesian philosophy at this point... -- Jeremy Wohl / wohl@max.physics.sunysb.edu / cfreas@csserv1.ic.sunysb.edu
ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) (02/01/91)
In article <1991Jan31.231237.22301@sbcs.sunysb.edu> cfreas@csws12.ic.sunysb.edu (Terry Freas) writes: > >>[...] it to run Windows applications."Microsoft will outline plans for OS/2 >>and Windows at a press seminar held at Microsoft on Tuesday. > >will and held in the same sentence? Did this occur already or not? >Either way, can someone post a summary? I'm very interested in >Gatesian philosophy at this point... > The following is a brief article from PC Magazine's editorial forum on Compuserve, summarizing the "Microsoft System's Strategy Seminar" held on Tuesday. It is by Bill Machrone, editor of PC Magazine and is reproduced here with his permission... ----------------------------- Sb: Msoft Strategy Seminar Fm: Bill Machrone [PCMAG] 72241,15 To: All Steve Ballmer launched his session today with, "I am not dead. I was not dropped. I have not been scrapped. And neither has OS/2." He went on to say, "We were wrong in April, 1987. OS/2 won't replace DOS." And so unfolds Microsoft's systems strategy. They are now categorizing the market in 3 tiers: low, mid, and high-end. The low-end solution continues to be DOS, and DOS will be enhanced beyond DOS 5, through DOS 6 and 7. They talked of something that sounded much like HPFS for some future version of DOS, plus other advances. The midrange today is the Win3/DOS combination, and will evolve to Win32 some time next year. The new kernel will be 32-bit, will feature preemptive multitasking and multithreading, 2GB address space, and advanced interprocess communication. Sound familiar? It will include the current 16-bit API, and the goal is to have 16- and 32-bit products working side by side. DOS apps will work in separate address spaces, as will Win32 apps. Win16 apps (current apps) will share one address space, making them potentially less robust. UAEs and similar errors are a big target. Win32 will also have Bezier curves, transforms, and other advanced graphical support. Now for the interesting part: Win32 is a technology, not a product. It will run over DOS as a future version of Windows, or over OS/2. In the latter mode, it'll support the existing OS/2 API as well. OS/2 3.0 will run all the Windows APIs as well as the PM API. It's primarily there for people who need strong peer-to-peer communications, as a foundation for LanMan, and as a way to support their big customers with an investment in SAA. Microsoft and IBM are fully cross-licensed on this and other versions. OS/2 3.0 will be based on a new kernel, called NT, for New Technology. Think of it as VMSjr, since it's designed by Dave Cutler and a crack team formerly of DEC. It's intended to be fast, portable, and thoroughly modern. They already have it running on 4 different processors. It runs all APIs: Win16, Win32, OS/2, *and* POSIX, for you Unix/Federal Gov't fans. It will be a high-security OS, meeting C2, B-level standards. It will provide fault-tolerance services, too. It will also be the foundation upon which they build a true distributed operating system, with fully distributed services and location transparency. NT also supports symmetric multiprocessing and threads across processors. The NT redirector and server are intended to interoperate with LanMan 2.0. When asked if IBM will adopt OS/2 3.0 after it's done with 1.x and 2.x, Microsoft stated that "IBM may choose to continue OS/2 2.0 for some indeterminate time in order to provide some special features and to address some special situations." This is a very condensed version of one section of 9 hours' worth of briefings; I'm sure the rest will be widely publicized in the trade press. This will doubtless suffice to launch a comment or two here. My interpretation is that Microsoft is stating clearly that it has come back to being customer driven, not IBM-driven, in operating systems. It is also saying that it is user-driven, not software developer-driven. For those reasons, I expect this strategy to work. I can't wait for next year's version of Windows, and OS/2 3.0 becomes the Swiss Army knife of operating systems. - Bill ------------ Alan Ballard | Internet: ballard@ucs.ubc.ca University Computing Services | Bitnet: USERAB1@UBCMTSG University of British Columbia | Phone: 604-228-3074 Vancouver B.C. Canada V6R 1W5 | Fax: 604-228-5116
ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) (02/03/91)
In article <1991Feb2.155742.3843@sbcs.sunysb.edu> cfreas@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Terry Freas) writes: >The only reason I can think of for MS taking this sidestep through >Win32 land is to make money in the interim between OS/2 2.0 and OS/2 3.0 >for themselves with no IBM product to take any chunk of it. That pretty much matches my conclusions about what is going on here. I think the MS point of view, however, is that the customers have spoken, and they've refused to by into OS/2 unless they get there via a series of steps that leave them with the impression they are just upgrading from DOS. There is some (small) amount of truth to this view. Alan Ballard | Internet: ballard@ucs.ubc.ca University Computing Services | Bitnet: USERAB1@UBCMTSG University of British Columbia | Phone: 604-228-3074 Vancouver B.C. Canada V6R 1W5 | Fax: 604-228-5116
cfreas@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Terry Freas) (02/04/91)
In article <1991Feb2.203624.25097@unixg.ubc.ca> ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) writes: >In article <1991Feb2.155742.3843@sbcs.sunysb.edu> cfreas@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Terry Freas) writes: > >>The only reason I can think of for MS taking this sidestep through >>Win32 land is to make money in the interim between OS/2 2.0 and OS/2 3.0 >>for themselves with no IBM product to take any chunk of it. > >That pretty much matches my conclusions about what is going on here. >I think the MS point of view, however, is that the customers have spoken, >and they've refused to by into OS/2 unless they get there via a series of >steps that leave them with the impression they are just upgrading from >DOS. There is some (small) amount of truth to this view. Exactly. Many of my non-technical friends rely on the press for their final information. The press decided long ago to run OS/2 in the dirt. Now they're drooling over Win32 (an OS/2 2.0 clone), so my friends are drooling. The media runs the industry. Microsoft just knows better how to handle the media, and make flashy products (sometimes without substance: Win3). I wonder if DOS and the PC would have made it if the media was as powerful as it is now in the micro industry. Seems to me that the same arguments were used then, but you had mostly technical people who could see through them. -- Jeremy Wohl / wohl@max.physics.sunysb.edu / cfreas@csserv1.ic.sunysb.edu
petergo@microsoft.UUCP (Peter GOLDE) (02/06/91)
In article <1991Jan30.065454.11451@unixg.ubc.ca> ballard@cheddar.ucs.ubc.ca (Alan Ballard) writes: >Now, can anybody figure out what the 11 [MS] OS/2 apps referred to are? >I count 2 (Word and Excel), or four if you include C and Fortran. Hmmmm. I count: C Compiler, Fortran Compiler, Basic Compiler, Cobol Compiler, Macro Assembler, Pascal Compiler. Lan Manager, SQL Server, Communications Server, OS/2 SDK. (Character) Word 5.5, (PM) Word 1.1, Excel, Multiplan. That's 14, so pick your favorite 11. --Peter Golde petergo%microsoft@uunet.uu.net