Pardon my abrupt intrusion into this thread.
I've been lurking in the corners listening to the OS/2 and TSE dialog
for quite some time, with not a little interest.  So I guess I'll
address this to those of you who have been mulling over the TSE & OS/2
issues on this echo:  Tom Hall, Steve Bromley, Dean Lochan, Philip
Thornton, Craig Miller, and Frank Sexton among others.
You see, I'm one of those users that would love to have the kind of
preemptive multitasking that OS/2 offers.  In fact I tried it for
three months earlier this year, and during a brief window of time,
very much appreciated significance of the effort that has gone into
bringing OS/2 to the market.
However, I think that IBM has stopped short of the effort that is needed
for OS/2 to make a credible challenge to the various Windoze offerings:
(Let me preface these comments by saying that the playing field on this
issue is neither level nor fair:  but if IBM wants to play the game, it
better understand the conditions of the playing field.)
1.  IBM's Position on Drivers Is Blatantly Unrealistic.
Like many who tried OS/2 (including a large number of recent model PS/2
users), my system had a motherboard based S3 SVGA chipset.  According to
IBM, support for resolutions beyond VGA was a matter between me and my
system vendor (among the top 5 manufacturers, yet not "supported" by
OS/2).  So much for better windows than Windows: My 640x480 OS/2 windows
looked pretty crummy on 21" monitor.
While this may seem imminently reasonable to IBM support folk, it is a
patently absurd position for a OS challenger in a dominated market.
A small number of people at IBM could take responsibility to poll
the system and video chipset vendors and collect driver files on
IBM's BBS.  Frankly, I suspect that the redirecting the  cost of 2-3 'nun'
and 'ballerina' commercials could fund a lot of this sort of effort.
Is it fair that IBM must do this while MicroSoft doesn't?  Heck no.
But when you're second in your market, you've got to try harder than the
leader if you want to survive.
2.  IBM's WARP Design for Driver Installation Is Much Too Fragile.
This seems like a fairly narrow design flaw, but the impact is monumental:
I've found that among "ex-OS/2" users, frustration with the complexity
of configuring OS/2 to take full advantage of  hardware capability
has been the most significant cause.  While IBM has band-aided this with
desktop archive and VGA-mode boot options, these are not well-coordinated,
particularly when a video driver is being installed:  There often is
NO way to back out of a bad video driver installation.  A "bail-out"
design like Norton Disk Doctor's  "Undo Disk" is sorely needed.
3.  IBM Needs to be Smarter About Its OS/2 Investments.
[I listened to a former IBM exec speak in a technology symposium back in 
992:
He pointed out back then (not sure about today), that if IBM sold a full
list price license for every PC Ever Made which was capable of running it,
IBM would still lose money on OS/2.]  IBM needs to decide whether it's in
or out of the market and invest accordingly.
If it wants to be in the game, the company needs to grow some cajones
and attack the business with a kamikaze vengeance.  IBM cannot market its
way into the game against MicroSoft with slick, high-brow TV ads.  That
isn't where the mass market is.  They're out there watching this
carefully engineered media feeding frenzy which has reached a fever
crescendo over the year long period that MicroSoft has been staging it.
Technically, OS/2 cannot afford to be "arguably better" that Windows; it
must be indisputably superior if it is to gain marketshare with
customers and mindshare with application developers.  IBM must attack
marketing with the same fervor and tactics used in the highly
competitive RISC and Mainframe markets:  Invest boldly by funding
application developers directly to bolster market share for the
underlying OS.
I believe that the computing industry grows and prospers when there
is a healthy balance between competitors vying for market leadership.
I hope that IBM will step up its efforts and place the kind of
investment in OS/2 that will be needed.
Since this is a SemWare products forum, let me relate this back to
a personal perspective on prioritizing development for TSE.  As much
I would love to see OS/2, NT, and Unix versions of TSE, I am primarily
interested in SemWare remaining in business to support and enhance
their products.  It is not as though SemWare has neglected the OS/2
community TSE Jr. for OS/2 (formerly Qedit for OS/2) has been
available for years.  The fact of the matter is that while OS/2 has
a very loyal following, it is a relatively small following in terms
of editor purchases.
A small software developer cannot afford to let technical biases get
in the way of good business decisions.  As a SemWare customer, I
respect their decision to wait until IBM has perserved the marketshare
challenge before betting their business (along with my investment
in their product) on an OS/2 version of TSE Pro.  After all, if IBM
isn't willing to invest what it takes to make OS/2 a market contender,
why should a software developer?  Food for thought.
Regards,
Mike Chambers
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