RE: [PCTECH]OS/2 (was HANG time...)

["Dan Bale" <dbale@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Maybe I mismember, but didn't I read a while back that IBM had developed a
version of Linux desktop that they are using internally?  It supposedly is
extremely stable with a nice GUI.  Maybe they're trying to figure out how to
market it.

Anyway, if that were the case, it would seem to make sense to drop OS/2.
New apps developed for OS/2 vs. Linux = no brainer.

Back in the early 90's, the company I was with was using IBM's Neural Net
Utility on OS/2.  At the time, it was a major breakthrough to see true
multitasking on a PC platform.  Windows 3.11 shoulda never seen the light of
day.

<Gush mode>
Can you imagine what OS/2 would be like today if it had won the marketing
war?  The mind boggles.
</Gush mode>

db

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Tom Liotta
> Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 3:38 PM
> To: pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PCTECH]OS/2 (was HANG time...)
>
>
> Alan,
>
> Not sure. Perhaps when they formally backed off from desktop
> support/sales? That was a public concession to Windows I guess. It was
> obviously coming for a long time, just not with statement-of-direction
> kinds of announcements. Interesting how they took hold of Linux...
> hmmm... at about exactly that time.
>
> Up until a year or two ago, ATMs ran somewhere around 95+% OS/2. AFAIK,
> it wasn't so much a change in IBM OS/2 support that started a switch to
> Windows ATMs. OS/2 wasn't being significantly enhanced anymore and
> opinion was growing that the WinNT kernal and follow-ons had finally
> become stable and reliable enough to go with. Of course, I can't think
> of a lot of enhancement to be done for OS/2 in an ATM environment (nor
> the desktop aside from more apps, IMO), but it's not my area.
>
> Tom Liotta
>
> Alan wrote:
>
> > Tom, Booth,
> >
> > What was the hubbub about OS/2 a couple of years back? IBM dropped some
> > level of support for it, which caused a lot of banks to start looking
> > for alternatives. (I saw an OS/2 Warp screen on my bank's ATM once,
> > rebooting during a crazy power on/off see-saw).
> >
> > - Alan