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echo: os2
to: Roger Nelson
from: Jack Stein
date: 1999-09-27 18:54:16
subject: OS/2 Support

Roger Nelson wrote in a message to Jack Stein:

 JS> IBM never supported OS/2.  They developed it, but never attempted
 JS> to get anyone to actually use it.  When people used it anyway, they
 JS> were miffed, and when a lot started to use it, the aggresively
 JS> marketed against it.  About the only marketing IBM did with OS/2
 JS> was to kill it, before it killed MS. [...]

 RN> The only time I remember (correct me if I'm wrong) IBM
 RN> making an attempt at supporting OS/2 was when the December
 RN> '92 beta came out.  We had toll-free tech support then, but
 RN> that was the end of it.  After that came limited toll tech
 RN> support and you could get a contract with them for the tech
 RN> support -- if you could afford it.  It wasn't geared to the
 RN> average user, but the corporations. 

That's not even close to what I'm talking about with regards to "support" for
OS/2.  I could care less if IBM maintains a hot line for OS/2, it's almost
meaningless.  What I'm talking about is taking the $3 BILLION IBM spent on the 
dead, or soon to be dead LOTUS, and spend it getting OS/2 into the main
distribution system, insuring that developers had the software and support
needed to develope and distribute their applications.  

If you gave me $3 BILLION dollars to waste in 1993, I would have had at least
one of the major distributors of computers selling and supporting OS/2, right
damn next to WIN 3.1.  In less than a year, WIN would have been crushed as
useless junk, and everyone would have been running OS/2.  

IBM DID NOT WANT THAT TO HAPPEN!  

They made sure it didn't happen.  IBM NEVER wanted the masses to run anything
but WIN.  It was in their control, they simply did not want it to happen, and
it didn't.  Why they didn't is speculation, that they didn't is as obvious as
it gets in the business world.

                                              Jack 
--- timEd/2-B11
140/1
* Origin: Jack's Free Lunch 4OS2 USR 56k Pgh Pa (412)492-0822 (1:129/171)

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