ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) (02/04/91)
In article <2467@beguine.UUCP> Gerben.Wierda@samba.acs.unc.edu (Gerben Wierda) writes: > >Two reports I have seen so far on Microsoft "dropping" OS/2. Someone over >here told me that they were *not* dropping OS/2, but they*are* dropping >the Presentation Manager and are taking the Windows interface instead. >They also told me that Microsoft just invested $10M in OS/2 Lan Manager... > >So, does anyone has something that is more than rumour (NeXT telling that >Microsoft quits OS/2) but fact (Microsoft telling it quits OS/2)? Microsoft knows OS/2 is a disaster and is definitely not doing any more 386-assembly work on OS/2. Work on OS/2 in C is also on back burner; the major software efforts are on Windows 3 and it's children. IBM is continuing work on OS/2 in 386-assembly; there is some news about IBM-Novell deals on that front. Many vendors have stuck their necks out by doing products for OS/2 (especially database and LAN types) so everyone is being discreet about it. -------Start_of_Speculation---------- In the long run, I suppose Microsoft understands Intel processors are a dead end and would want to migrate to SPARC/MIPS/88k. The only way to do that is to rewrite in C. The best they can hope for in that project is 100% source compatibility between Windows 4 applications and OS/2 written in C for (say) SPARC. I assume that will be their target next. Unix grew up over more than a decade, using the best minds of Bell Labs, UCBerkeley and Sun Microsystems. In my understanding, the quality of people at Microsoft is not good enough to do a good OS -- starting from scratch in C -- within a few years. They're good at writing word processors, Bill Gates knows how to write a Basic Interpreter. Writing an OS is a different kettle of fish! Hence, personally, I consider that line of thought to be a dead-end. I'm more interested in the way SysVR4 will evolve esp. in the influence of Mach (multiprocessing dreams). All this is my understanding, not fact. -- _______________________________________________________________________________ Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu The more things change, the more they stay insane. _______________________________________________________________________________