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From: attg@interlog.com (attg (Advanced Trading Technology Group))
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.os2.beta,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: My Personal Take On Merlin and Beyond
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 15:02:10 GMT
Organization: Bank of Montreal
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On 14 Feb 1996 16:27:27 GMT, s002atd@byrd.wright.edu (AARON DINGUS)
wrote:

>o Make the whole interface second to none.
>   
>  Right now, the functionality of the WPS is unparalleled as far as I am 
>concerned.  I absolutely love it, so why does it lack any aesthetic appeal? 
>Some people may like it the way it looks now, and hey! that's fine with me, 
>but I think that IBM should take a page from Copeland, the forthcoming MacOS.  
>With it's themes you can greatly effect how the OS looks, much more so than 
>Win95's changing icons and colors. I think IBM should allow you to have the 
>old look if you want but have a KPT or SGI or NeXT looking new, progressive 
>look available.

The WPS is nice to use, nicer (IMO) than the Win95 shell. However, the
Win95 shell appears considerably faster, on the same hardware. The
toolbar was a nice addition in Warp from v2.1, but I think that IBM
needs to add a little more base functionality to the shell, rather
than carping on the "you can write a Rexx script to...".

>o Make the installation unparalleled.
>  
>  My *personal* experience with installing and assisting installing 
>Windows95 (about 10 times) has been much more fluid than mine with 
>OS/2 (about 6 times). I think that it would be quite a turn if OS/2 were 
>easier to install than Windows95. Like, ludicrously, shamelessly, 
>ridiculously easy to put on there.  I mean you press go, answer 2 or 3 
>questions, wait a few minutes and wham! you are at the new gorgeous desktop 
>ready to work, regardless of whatever system you have. That may be asking a 
>bit much, but it anything in between would be vastly improved from my 
>experience with Warp 3.0 for machines with Windows CD.

The OS/2 install is usually either (a) fairly straightforward, or (b)
utter hell. There appears to be no middle ground. One of the things
that impressed quite a number of people when they installed Windows 95
was that the setup even identified their *external* modem. Warp is
significantly better than 2.0 was for installation, but it certainly
could tolerate some improvement. The importing of Windows groups, for
example, can never seem to determine whether to add new WPS objects or
just links to existing objects in the Win/OS2 folder, for example
(that may be fixed in a service pack, I haven't checked lately).

>o Take a loss on development tools for OS/2.
>
>  IBM should practically give away their professional visual development 
>tools for OS/2. I am not sure what the current prices are for their state 
>of the art stuff, but I think they should all but give them to developers, 
>who would then become hooked on them, and invest there efforts in OS/2.

No need for them to take a loss, but no need to soak people, either.
Like it or not, Microsoft sells VB and VC++ as much on perception and
third party support as they do on technical merit. IBM would do well
to actually ADVERTISE their development tools, and get some more third
party support. Get things like Purify for OS/2, maybe even an MFC port
to attract developers. And for heaven's sake, TELL people about it.
The latest OS/2 Mag (or maybe OS/2 Pro, I can't remember) showed an ad
for IBM's new Visual Age C++ system -- for Windows 95 and Windows NT.
Is this thing available for OS/2? If not, why not? If so, why aren't
they mentioning it? IBM makes no mention that they support OS/2 in the
ad (and then they wonder why people are uncertain about IBM's
commitment to OS/2).

>o Coerce Netscape into making an OS/2 native browser with a full feature list.
>
>  I think this one goes without saying. (Please pardon me if there is already 
>one coming or available or something, if there is, excuse my ignorance)

"Coerce"? Given all the ranting about Microsoft's intimidation
tactics, I don't support this at all. Ask, convince, or tempt if you
like, beg if you must, but don't coerce.

>o Bundle everything but the kitchen sink with OS/2

This was pretty much already done with Warp. Remember the Bonus Pack?
It was there to address the complaint that there were no applications
for OS/2 v2.1 available.

>  In addition to the current stuff: also SmartSuite, the aforementioned 
>Netscape, and one multimedia Game, to show people that you can make a kick 
>ass game for OS/2.  That is the impetus for Hover! coming with Win95, so 
>people will go, hey! this may not be the greatest game, but it is at least 
>comparable to the performance of a DOS 3D game.

I think that Hover was specifically done to show that the WinG engine
could do as good a job with video performance as normal DOS could
(something which most users and game developers didn't believe). What
OS/2 multimedia game were you thinking of? I'm not familiar with any,
to be honest.

>o Destroy, annihilate and otherwise eliminate any doubt of OS/2's future.
>
>  Many people on this newsgroup would take great exception to the statement 
>that OS/2 is "dead" or "dying".  Sorry to break it to everyone but that is 
>a very common perception.  Many on here blame the media for being bought out 
>by MS, and I find that accusation to be nonsense. What I do find the case to 
>be is that OS/2 is not perceived as a success. The programs, although maybe 

I think that a lot of people shoot the messenger for the bad news,
that's certain. But given the evidence (IBM doesn't preinstall OS/2 on
all their machines, OS/2 for PPC development dropped within a month of
it being released, IBMers at in the Comdex booth openly critical of
OS/2, IBM advertising their software for Win95/NT and not even
mentioning the existance of OS/2 equivalents, etc., etc., etc.), I'm
not terribly surprised that the average joe doesn't think about OS/2 a
lot. It's not PC Magazine's or Byte's responsibility to sell or
promote OS/2, it's *IBM's* job. Hell, if IBM can't be bothered to
promote their operating system, why should anyone else?

>extant, are not highly visible.  It has *gasp* achieved a reputation for 
>being difficult to install, rightly or wrongly deservant.  To counter this 
>IBM needs to either keep it or not. Either shelve it or go balls out.  If they 
>want to keep it they should, and I know this is going to sound extreme in a 
>world of open systems, close up any relationship with MS, and become like 
>Apple.  OS/2 on ALL, I repeat 100% ALL of their outgoing PCs. They are so DAMN 
>large, so much more so than Apple, that they could maybe do it.  Their *PC 

I can see no reason why IBM is unable to provide the IBM operating
system on the IBM hardware they sell. If they won't (or can't) get
their own house in order, how can they expect anyone else to follow
them?

>Division* hasn't made money in like, 267 years, or something, so what do they 
>have to lose?  This would require them to really get behind OS/2 which is 
>something they only really do about every 4 or 5 months, when the rumors of 
>OS/2 pending death get above a murmur.

True. Total apathy for months on end, intersperced with occasional
bursts of frantic activity denying that they are apathetic.

>o Have the guts to stand up to Microsoft
>
>  This is my last and favorite point, MICROSOFT IS WHERE THEY ARE TODAY 
>BECAUSE OF CUSTOMER COMPLACENCY, TECHNOLOGICAL APATHY AND MASTERING SPIN.  

That, and they have products that people actually want to use.

>IBM should, of all people, have the balls to stand up and really leverage 
>OS/2 where it is supposed to be right now, the OS for all of IBM's PC's, 
>plain and simple. Anything else is a knock off. It should be anathema for 
>an IBM produced product to come standard with a cheap 15 year old OS with a 
>32 bit API, made by some crapmonger.  It kills me that IBM can be bullied by a 
>company one tenth its size.  Get some damn nerve...

The only reason that Microsoft's nerve works is because either (a)
they have a better product, or (b) they have a better product.
Ignoring the conspiracy buffs for the moment, the simple fact is that
Microsoft runs rings about IBM because IBM lacks (or at least fails to
exhibit) the brains and skill required to compete. 

OS/2 beat Windows 3.1 hands down on technical merit. OS/2 still beats
Windows 95 on technical merit on most points (not all), but they are
completely outmanouvered by MS (in the home market, at least) because
MS produces software that people actually want to use (compare Encarta
with IBM's SearchManager/2, for example). Sitting and screaming "but
it's 32 bit!!! and multi-threaded!!!" means little to the end user;
they see functionality, something that IBM has not been able to
demonstrate.

>Well, that's all I have got for now, if anyone would like to add to this list 
>or email me that is cool.  I appreciate any reasonable discourse on this 
>subject, and would like to apologize if I have said anything in ignorance.  If 

One area that you've missed is: FOCUS. OS/2 has failed to grab the
market largely because it can't figure out what market it is in.
Unlike MS, who positions Win95 as a home/SOHO system, with NT
Workstation the the corporate user and NT/S at the server level, OS/2
is constantly sending mixed signals: is it a new OS? a platform for
supporting old legacy apps from DOS and Windows? a networking OS? a
home OS? While it can be all these things, too many mixed signals are
being fired out. I mean, one of the hallmarks of OS/2 was the
compatability with Window 3.0 (and later 3.1) applications. What
happens? IBM starts an ad campaign called "I Don't Do Windows" and
scares away people using it as an integrating platform.

>that is the case please, responsibly, enlighten me.  With that said I will 
>still get a flame from someone to the effect of: 

Yes, one of the *other* major drawbacks dragging OS/2 down is the (not
entirely undeserved) reputation Team/OS2 has for being a group of bad
tempered, foul mouthed hateful bigots who spend most of their days
foaming at the mouth and mauling anyone who posts anything positive
about Microsoft or negative about OS/2. As one Amiga VP once said,
"our lunatic fringe hasn't does us any favours". OS/2 suffers from the
same image problem.

>Thanks for the ear,

No problem, I still have one left. :-)