Andy Roberts wrote in a message to Jack Stein:

 JS>>> IBM never supported OS/2.  They developed it, but never
 JS>>> attempted to get anyone to actually use it.

 RB>> The MS trial in the states has had a lot of stories about how systems
 RB>> integraters were scared off preinstalling OS/2 by MS reps.

 AR> Commonly known as the Microsoft "Cut Throat Contracts."

 AR> I heard 1 of those stories 1st hand from the Manager of a
 AR> local EggHead who only weeks before had published an ad
 AR> stating he would have a large section of his new larger
 AR> store devoted to OS/2, which was only a few miles away from
 AR> his former store, which also carried OS/2.  When I went to
 AR> his new store there was nothing that wasn't Microsoft,



An amazing story Andy, if it were not you stating it first hand, I'd have
doubted it happened...

 AR> IMO that qualifies as "scared off" by Microsoft reps. 

I'll say.

 RB>> There was quite a bit of advertising for it in those days, both 
 RB>> in trade mags and on TV of all things.

 JS> Sorry, I must have missed those days...  I was heavy into
 JS> computing then too, wonder how it slipped by me... Oh, the nun
 JS> commercials, I remember those lame ads, it was a waste of money if
 JS> the objective was to promote OS/2.

 AR> LOL some of those TV ads were even worse than the nun
 AR> commercials.  Obviously IBM doesn't have the knack for end
 AR> user advertisement.

They don't need any knack for this, they hire people to do it for them, just
like MS.

 JS> They had to stick a huge hunk of money up the ass of Gateway or 
 JS> Dell, bribe them, sue them, torture them, send them hookers, 
 JS> What ever normal businessmen do

 AR> Sheesh, that sounds more like Microsoft tactics, rather than
 AR> "normal". 

I was saying that tongue in cheek, more or less...

 JS> when they want a company to use a superior product. Heck, you 
 JS> could get them to use a horrible product with the right 
 JS> tacktics, if you know what I mean

 AR> I'm not at all sure the "right tactics" were used by
 AR> Microsoft.  And I think IBM knew that those tactics were not
 AR> proper and realized the expense of fighting was going to be
 AR> substantial compared to the profits from OS/2 end user
 AR> sales.

I don't think we see eye to eye on this one.  The tactics worked for MS, but
the product DEMANDED those tactics, because it is junk.  A good product such
as OS/2 did not need underhanded tactics so much, just marketing support.  The 
return on investment on this would have been incredible.

 RB>> Why IBM decided to smother it, no one knows.  Some say that
 RB>> support cost too much, some say IBM did it to get a better
 RB>> preload deal for Windows 95, I don't know what is true.

 AR> I've heard both of those reasons, and several others.

 JS> I say it's because IBM, MicroSoft and INTEL have a huge cartel
 JS> going for them, and they like it as it is, and have ZIFF-DAVIS and
 JS> the DOJ helping them maintain this sick relationship, and the
 JS> consumer gets stuck with their junk

 AR> I think that is over simplifying the past situation.  

True I guess, but, thats what it looks like from the outside, and nothing
thats been done by any of those parties conflicts much with this simplified
view.

 AR> Microsoft bought a controlling share of Ziff-Davis. The DoJ 
 AR> only got involved after the US government already bought so 
 AR> much Microsoft stuff that it created a conflict of interest.  
 AR> Besides here in the US money can often buy a legal judgement.  
 AR> Personally I still hope some future political changes will 
 AR> eventually result in justice.

Would be nice, but, IBM really didn't need the DOJ much, had they been willing 
to put up the fight in the market place, they weren't, thats my main point.  

 JS> I would have liked IBM to support OS/2 to the extent that 
 JS> retailers would have been fighting to get a "certified OS/2 
 JS> ready" sticker on the equipment they sell.  IBM didn't do it, 
 JS> didn't WANT to do it, or it would have happened.

 AR> Not necessarily.  The DoJ ruling did not nullify the old
 AR> "Cut Throat Contracts", but only prevented Microsoft from
 AR> issuing new "Cut Throat Contracts".  All distributors and
 AR> developers who already had signed contracts still have to
 AR> honor them.  

I not sure about that.  I don't have a copy of the final order, but, that is
exactly what the DOJ was shooting for, and they won thier case.  In fact, the
original judge rightly decided that the relief sought was not NEARLY enough,
but of course the DOJ appealed their victory, highly unusual.  Here is what
the DOJ intially sought:
                        PRAYER FOR RELIEF
        WHEREFORE, PLAINTIFF PRAYS FOR RELIEF AS FOLLOWS:
     1.   That the Court adjudge and decree that Microsoft has
monopolized the interstate trade and commerce in the market for
PC operating systems in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman
Act.
     2.   That the Court adjudge and decree that Microsoft has
entered into unlawful contracts and combinations which
unreasonably restrain the trade in interstate commerce in PC
operating systems, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
     3.   That Microsoft and all persons, firms and corporations
acting on its behalf and under its direction or control be
permanently enjoined from engaging in, carrying out, renewing or
attempting to engage, carry out or renew, any contracts,
agreements, practices, or understandings in violation of the
Sherman Act.
     4.   That plaintiff have such other relief that the Court
may consider necessary or appropriate to restore competitive
conditions in the markets affected by Microsoft's unlawful
conduct.
.     5.   That the plaintiff recover the costs of this action.

     Dated: July 15, 1994

Note that number 3 states the illegal contracts not be carried out.

 AR> Besides by the time the DoJ did anything at all
 AR> the situation was way out of hand in Microsoft's favor. 

It was very late in the game, but not too late.  Now it is probably too late.

 JS> You can only keep a far superior product down by standing on it 
 JS> in a competitive market.

 AR> Microsoft did the standing on of OS/2.  Remember the many
 AR> new versions of Win32s that did nothing except prevent OS/2
 AR> from installing the new 3rd-party software written with
 AR> Microsoft tools and assistance.  

With a superior product, proper marketing support, and so on, MS would have
been in deep trouble once the user began using OS/2 and it's products.  They
were fighting for their life as it was, and could have been stomped on by IBM
without too much effort.  Remember, we are talking WIN3x vs OS/2....

 AR> What I'm trying to say is that society has never been made
 AR> up of a large portion of technically aware or educated
 AR> people in proportion to those who just do or repeat what
 AR> they have been told.  Adding more computer users as a whole
 AR> of society, does not change the ratio of the proportion that
 AR> are likely to make the most of OS/2.  The remainder and that
 AR> is the vast majority of society deserve what they get from
 AR> Microsoft, since they don't know the difference anyway.

It was up to IBM to get the new users on the OS/2 scene, they didn't do it,
didn't try at all.  No technical competance is needed to run OS/2, any more
than WIN.

 AR> And in that respect, you and I and several others have all
 AR> decided (probably after quite a few failures) that it is not
 AR> in our best interest to attempt to educate them beyond a low
 AR> limit or compensate by supporting the Microsoft users for
 AR> free.  

Yes, I quit doing that when Big Lou said it was over.

 AR> It was not and is not a matter of "want" nor desires nor
 AR> which OS is technically superior.  IBM = International
 AR> BUSINESS Machine.  It is simply a matter of "business". 
 AR> Making a profit.

There is a heck of a lot of profit out there in the desktop computer market.
MS doesn't fare too badly at it.

 AR> Put yourself in IBM's position.  Consider realistically the
 AR> expenses of end user support and long court battles and
 AR> changing the end users desires to be "on the band wagon". 

Peanuts, part of doing business in a competitive world.  IBM has been doing it 
rather well for 100 years, everyone else is new at it compared to them.

 AR> Consider hypothetically that you are on the IBM board and
 AR> have to listen when the various divisions of IBM each state
 AR> a different reason for supporting Microsoft. 

If I were the IBM board, I would first decide if I want to move MS out of the
OS market, if the decision was yes, the rest would have been history.  The
decision was not yes, never was yes, and they didn't bother trying. The money
was there to be made, in spades.  Perhaps they were afraid of controlling
everything yet again, perhaps something else was going on, but it was not
normal, competitive business.

 AR>  The PC Sales division says they can sell more hardware to end 
 AR> users with Microsoft rather than OS/2.  What do you do force 
 AR> them to pre-load OS/2 at a greater expense and thus lose the 
 AR> sales? Follow that with listening to the software development
 AR> division say the users want apps for Microsoft in a much
 AR> larger quantity than OS/2 apps.  What do you do force the
 AR> developers to write native OS/2 apps and lose the sales? 
 AR> Follow that with listening to the Lotus programmers read
 AR> their "Cut Throat Contract" if they attempt to cross
 AR> platform develop apps using the Microsoft tools. That would
 AR> immediately raise a loud voice from the legal department
 AR> about penalties.  That would immediately raise a loud voice
 AR> from the accounting department about how to cover the
 AR> expense for those penalties and other legal fees.  Somewhere
 AR> in the back is a small voice mentioning how much it cost to
 AR> offer free 800 phone T/S to the average home user.  Ok, so
 AR> you cut the free 800 phone T/S, which already swallowed the
 AR> past profits.  Then you listen to the T/S department say
 AR> none of the average home users will pay for T/S and the
 AR> retailers don't have the smarts to do it.  About this time
 AR> you are thinking how good the big business profits for
 AR> service are.  Then Microsoft ups the cost of allowing IBM to
 AR> package their software to IBM's clients.  Not just a little
 AR> up, but way up by a factor of 4 or 5 times more than what it
 AR> was the previous year.  Time runs out and there are only
 AR> hours left and Microsoft now says they will continue to up
 AR> the price unless IBM stops marketing OS/2 to the end home
 AR> user and small business.  So on 1 hand you have very little
 AR> money in the till from home user sales that wasn't already
 AR> spent giving them what they wanted.  On the other hand you
 AR> stand to lose in the future for your big business clients if
 AR> you don't comply with Microsoft's demands.  The legal
 AR> department says you can not cross platform develop using
 AR> Microsoft's tools and Java stinks and Open32 stinks and the
 AR> TV ads stink.  Then you realize that all that stench is
 AR> coming from the end user area and not the big business area.
 AR> So now what do you decide to do about all that?

They decided before all these departments came to the meeting to whine.

 AR> It's no fair saying well "IF" I had the money spent on Lotus
 AR> or raunchy TV ads, or Open32 or whatever else failed, then I
 AR> could have...  Lotus was not failing when IBM bought it. 

It was close enough.

 AR> Personally I think IBM made a very bad call to give up on
 AR> the end user SOHO user market regardless of how much more
 AR> Microsoft was going to charge them or even if Microsoft
 AR> didn't let IBM bundle Microsoft software to IBM clients. For
 AR> the money IBM charges those big business clients IBM could
 AR> send someone down to the local shop to buy WinXX retail, and
 AR> still make a profit.  IMO someone at IBM completely
 AR> under-estimated the effect of what software a user has at
 AR> home has on what software will be chosen for big business
 AR> later.  IMO IBM falsely assumed that Microsoft home users
 AR> would suddenly switch to OS/2 at work because of
 AR> reliability.  Thus IBM falsely assumed that they could still
 AR> hold onto the big business market even if they let loose of
 AR> the end users.  By the time IBM figured out that isn't the
 AR> way businesses grow, it was too late.

So, you think IBM is stupid.  I don't, no one is that stupid.  

 AR>  So now IBM is trying to make the best of a bad situation and 
 AR> make their profit as a "Service" company.  No doubt Microsoft 
 AR> software needs a lot more service than OS/2.  That means more 
 AR> money to IBM.

IBM though is a hardware company first, always has been.  They are so big,
they make a ton selling software and service along with their products.

 AR> There is an irony in that.  It isn't that OS/2 is not good
 AR> enough, rather it is that OS/2 is too good.  Microsoft
 AR> doesn't care if some other OS like Apple or OS/2 is better. 
 AR> Microsoft wants to be the "only" OS.  That made OS/2 a
 AR> target just like Apple was a target.  IBM doesn't care which
 AR> OS it's paying clients want support for.  IBM will even
 AR> support Linux "if it pays." 

Yes, I understand all that.  IBM is a very smart company.  They make good
business decisions, I don't doubt that.  

I have to go to work, so can't get to the rest of your well written and long
post...  I appreciate your time and thoughts as always Andy, and yes, you make 
a lot of sense on this, even though I may argue with some, I'm listening.

                                              Jack 
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