Greetings, Murray...

 Murray Lesser hastily said to Sean Dennis:

 ML>     IBN made what it thought was a valid marketing attempt to push the
 ML> first Warp version (OS/2 3.0) to the SOHO market when that version was
 ML> first released (1994).  There have been many theories expressed on this
 ML> echo (including a grand conspiracy theory) as to why that effort was
 ML> abandoned.  I know little of the real story, but my own pet opinion is
 ML> that IBM finally learned that it doesn't know how to deal with a
 ML> nonprofessional individual user :-(.  I base this opinion, in part, on
 ML> those terrible 1994/5 TV ads for OS/2.

"Terrible".... being a bit charitable are we??  :)


 ML>     An early version of Star Office (called "IBM Works" at the time) was
 ML> distributed (free) with the Warp 3 Bonus Pak.

Not exactly... the early version of Star Office was distributed free as a beta 
from Stardivision in Germany... (I had betas of versions 3 and 4, and had been 
looking forward to its North American release, and was expecting to pay what
was necessary.. Imagine my pleasure when it got released as a "freebie")

The suite that was released with Warp as IBM Works was the same package as was 
on the Warp 4 bonus pak IIRC... Mine (from Connect) has copyrights from
Footprint Software (ISTR that it was originally referred to as "Footprint
Works", in fact), as well as IBM, MasterSoft, Halcyon and Houghton-Miffin some 
of which are dated as far back as 1983...


 ML>  Where else can you find a PL/I compiler for OS/2?  (US
 ML> list price $2,999, although I got the current v 2.1 from IBM for much
 ML> less!) \

Of course, you first have to WANT one... ;>

 ML>  I, too, use several shareware application programs (all
 ML> registered).  But very few large commercial concerns will use shareware,
 ML> largely because they want to be as certain as possible that the provider
 ML> of the software will still be around to fix it when.

Although just being high-priced "commercial" stuff doesn't always guarantee
that the provider will be around -- or, in some cases, interested in providing 
support..


        -- Bob

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