Peter Fitzsimmons said to JERRY LAPHAM in the Fido OS2 Programming
conference on 02-26-1996:

PF> They did -- it was called "FirstStep", and it didn't sell -- the
PF> "pro" version (then priced around $350) sold more.

Probably because of the warnings posted on the various nets that
"FirstStep" wasn't any good.  I don't know whether they were true or
not but I'll bet they scared off some potential buyers.

PF> The "don't want to pay for software" (DWTPFS) crowd has a large
PF> presence in this forum (and similar forums,  like the internet
PF> newsgroups),  but since they don't vote with their checkbooks they
PF> go mostly unheard --which is not such a bad thing,  I guess,  if we
PF> want these compainies to stay in business.

It's a bad thing if IBM's objective is to promote OS/2 as a popular
operating system rather than to make money on (or even cover the costs
of) the sale of a few compilers and tools.  It may not seem fair for
IBM to have to give away tools to every wannabe programmer, but it may
be necessary.

I think the situation is analogous to device drivers.  It's not fair
that IBM has to do device drivers because hardware manufacturers supply
Windows drivers and ignore OS/2, but if IBM wants to sell OS/2, they
better do it.

    -Jerry

---
 þ KWQ/2 1.2i þ "Check the tailpipe," said Tom exhaustively.