is OS2 a good choice or a dinosoar
Simon John Othen
The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
a good idea or what?
replies would be apprieciated.
Mike DaBull Harris
The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
a good idea or what?
I really believe this is a question more related to what TYPE of
applications your company intends to implement? OS/2 is NOT dead and
IBM currently markets the OS more to the corporate user vs. that of the
kitchentop user!
___________________________________
M i k e "D a B u l l" H a r r i s
miha...@westsound.com
Undernet: #OS/2: Chanop
#Soundoff: Manager
#Computech: Helper
Dennis Peterson
Simon John Othen wrote:
>
> The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
> a good idea or what?
>
OS/2 is a remarkable dinosaur. If your hardware is supported and you
have no need for Win95 (Win32) apps it is a very fine OS. Like anything
that has been around for years and years, the worst of the bugs are
gone. The current version has a wide range of network support, a tcp/ip
stack and tool suite that is quite complete, and generally satisfies the
needs of a wide variety of user types.
dp
nospam...@io.com
In <69m1ue$fkr$1...@biffo.sol.co.uk>, on 01/15/98
>The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
>a good idea or what?
Well, we'd need a little more information than that. What do they plan on
using OS/2 for? What kind of company?
Frankly, I think the number of companies that should be using OS/2 but aren't
far outnumber the companies that are using OS/2 but
shouldn't.
Plus, the fact that your company has even considered OS/2 means that they're
not dumb enough to go with all the hype. You should at least be proud of
that.
--
Remove "nospam_" from my email address when replying
Timur "too sexy for my code" Tabi, ti...@io.com, http://www.io.com/~timur OS/2
page: http://www.os2ss.com/Information/Newusers/index.html
OS/2 Programming page: http://www.edm2.com/common/links.html
Looking for the best OS/2 soundcard? http://www.io.com/~timur/crystalos2.html
John Brush
In <69m1ue$fkr$1...@biffo.sol.co.uk>, on 01/15/98 at 10:16 PM,
"Simon John Othen" <simo...@post.almac.co.uk> said:
**The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2.
**Is this a good idea or what?
Interesting sentence :)
Are you saying they are going to invest in OS/2, and you don't think
they should? Or do you mean they are going to invest in it and screw
it up? :-)
OS/2 is as valid and powerful an option as it has ever been, and has
been proven time and again to be superior to that stuff from Redmond.
Support for the SOHO user is forever being questioned, but no one
should question IBM's commitment to the corporate environment. It is
solid and reliable.
If you want to increase productivity, reduce system crashes and
failures, save time and money on maintenance, upgrades, and hardware,
then OS/2 is the way to go. But, if you don't care about cost of
ownership, upgrades, and hardware, have deep pockets, and a desire to
work all hours re-installing and updating software, and you have mondo
bucks for hardware and network administration, then there are folks at
M$ just dying to take your hard earned money and turn it over to their
legal department to offset the cost of their arrogance and miserable
software.
John
Dr. Alex
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 22:16:27 -0000, Simon John Othen wrote:
>The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
>a good idea or what?
>
>replies would be apprieciated.
This is actually more appropriate to comp.os.os2.advocacy, if you repost it
there you'll receive enough conflicting advice to wonder if you still
shouldn't be using DOS 3.00.
cheers, Alex.
Dr. Alex
http://www.pharm.uwa.edu.au/~aledain
ale...@receptor.pharm.uwa.edu.au
Detlef Schaebel
On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 22:16:27, "Simon John Othen"
> The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
> a good idea or what?
>
> replies would be apprieciated.
>
>
>
It is a battle proof dino, fitted for a Java future. The cheap version
for fast networks is workspace-on-demand. The standard apps like
Staroffice 4 and Netscape are available, i hope GIMP (Photoshop-like)
will follow soon. Corel announced to continue java development. Alaska
has a Xbase-language (http://www.alaska.de)
When you use OS/2 you must have a closer look at the hardware, but
then it runs. And runs.
If you like "os-exploring", you must choose windows. Then you can
explore al 2-3 years a new system with new and old problems. And if
you want to reboot the server, try NT. They must be rebooted daily, or
they surprise you with hangs.
Do you need something special? How many places will you built with
OS/2?
Bye
Detlef Schaebel, TeamOS/2 Ruhr e.V., Germany
----------------------------------------------------------------------
---------
Note: if *YOU* want more OS/2 software, then:
Buy it, register the shareware you use
and avoid pirated software and reg.keys
The OS/2 Software Petition Page is up again:
http://www2.andrews.edu/~boyko/campaign.html
Ivan.S...@snet.net
>this a good idea or what?
>replies would be apprieciated.
Only when you learn to spell.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ivan.S...@snet.net
-----------------------------------------------------------
eda...@cts.com
In <69m1ue$fkr$1...@biffo.sol.co.uk>, "Simon John Othen" <simo...@post.almac.co.uk> writes:
>The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
>a good idea or what?
>
not a dinosaur. It is the most advanced, comercialy available, single
user, OS there is.
--
Show me a cultural relativist at thirty-thousand feet
and I'll show you a hypocrite -- Richard Dawkins
Edmond Dantes eda...@cts.com
http://www.users.cts.com/crash/e/edantes
Stan Goodman
Richard Steiner
Here in comp.os.os2.misc, "Simon John Othen" <simo...@post.almac.co.uk>
spake unto us, saying:
>The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2.
>Is this a good idea or what?
I would guess it largely depends on the company, on how precisely the
company plans to use the OS, and on which particular issues the company
deems are most important when it comes to the context in which they are
thinking of running OS/2.
There are some things that OS/2 is very good at (and might be a good
fit for), and some things it is very poor at. Need more input. :-)
--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> rste...@skypoint.com >>>---> Bloomington, MN
OS/2 Warp 4 + Linux + Executor = PC Hobbyist Heaven!
DOS=HIGH... I knew it was on something!
Stan Goodman
John E. Quigley II
Matt
Simon John Othen wrote:
> The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is this
> a good idea or what?
>
> replies would be apprieciated.
Well the company I work for used to have an OS/2 server running OS/2 2.1
and lan server 3.0 for four years and I can't say that I ever saw it crash
during
it's life time. Very stable system as a file server which is what we were using
it for. Lately our main office has standardized on Win NT 4.0 and after
replacing
the old server with a new one, the first server crash took my work station with
it.
I can't say I ever saw that happen under os/2 either. With OS/2 you don't need
a new version every year like some other operating systems.
Matt Linder
Michael549
If I were going to invest my company's money in a technology, I would do
research on my needs (current and future), and the ability of that technology
to support those needs. I would think that many other company's and their
leadership have done such an investigation. Sometimes, its pays to respect the
decisions made -- since we are not all blessed with "perfect knowledge".
OS/2 is not a "bad" operating system and software environment. It may or may
not be "good" for some users. Trust those users to be "competent" enough to
make such decisions.
Just my thoughts.
Michael
Subject: is OS2 a good choice or a dinosoar
From: "Simon John Othen" <simo...@post.almac.co.uk>
Date: Thu, Jan 15, 1998 17:16 EST
Message-id: <69m1ue$fkr$1...@biffo.sol.co.uk>
Mike Cocke
> The company I am joining is about to invest wrongly I think in OS/2. Is th
> a good idea or what?
> replies would be apprieciated.
Well, as decided by the MIS steering committee 2 nights ago, the five
companies that I manage the computers for are ALL switching to OS/2 in
a controlled phase-out of Microsoft products.
We've been running tests and phase-ins for the last year, and response
has been very good indeed. The owner of the company now uses OS/2 at
home, as well as at work (his request).
Aside from the obvious discussion of "will OS/2 run the applications
that we need" (answer is yes, BTW) - here are some of the points
raised;
Remember when Win95 was released, Microsoft announced that this was a
5 year product, designed to assist in the transition to WinNT. In
other words, either Microsoft has changed their plans and not
announced it (as usual), or the thousands (millions?) of dollars being
spent on Win95 software is wasted. WinNT will not run most Win95
software at this time, and Microsoft won't say if or when it will.
Intel has announced that the next generation microprocessor (I forget
the code name) will NOT be 80x86 compatible. This means that it will
run NO current OS. OS/2 has already meen ported to a microcode
version (although that version never made it to market, it does
exist). Win95 has not, and no one seems to know if NT has or not.
Microsoft tech support advises AGAINST running mission critical apps
on Win95.
But I'll tell you the argument that stopped the debate in its tracks:
Look at Microsofts' record of delivering what they promise when they
promise it, and having it work right.
Look at IBMs.
I feel perfectly comfortable betting that OS/2 is a good decision.
Mike-
MIS director, Diamond Productions, Inc.
Consolidated Diamond Blade
Hoffman Diamond Products
Anton Smit Diamond
Ocean Ventures
========================================================================
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters
will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to
the Internet, we know this is not true."
--Professor Robert Silensky
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Member: DNRC Watcher: Babylon 5 User: OS/2 Warp
If you're going to do something, do something worth doing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* RM 1.31 1312 *
Bob Germer
On <98011617...@cencore.com>, on 01/16/98 at 01:24 PM,
mike....@cencore.com (Mike Cocke) said:
> Well, as decided by the MIS steering committee 2 nights ago, the five
> companies that I manage the computers for are ALL switching to OS/2 in a
> controlled phase-out of Microsoft products.
Very wise decision. You have solved many of your Year 2000 potential
problems! More on this later.
> We've been running tests and phase-ins for the last year, and response
> has been very good indeed. The owner of the company now uses OS/2 at
> home, as well as at work (his request).
Maybe he's the boss because he's so smart.
> Aside from the obvious discussion of "will OS/2 run the applications
> that we need" (answer is yes, BTW) - here are some of the points raised;
But will those applications run properly after 1/1/2000? More later.
> Remember when Win95 was released, Microsoft announced that this was a 5
> year product, designed to assist in the transition to WinNT. In other
> words, either Microsoft has changed their plans and not announced it (as
> usual), or the thousands (millions?) of dollars being spent on Win95
> software is wasted. WinNT will not run most Win95 software at this
> time, and Microsoft won't say if or when it will.
Actually, the number spent on software for 95 is in the billions of
dollars. Moreover, MS has said repeatedly that there will not be legacy
support in NT for older 32 bit apps. MS is deliberately breaking Office 97
with the new Win98 currently in development to force people to buy new
copies of existing MS applications.
> Intel has announced that the next generation microprocessor (I forget
> the code name) will NOT be 80x86 compatible. This means that it will
> run NO current OS. OS/2 has already meen ported to a microcode version
> (although that version never made it to market, it does exist). Win95
> has not, and no one seems to know if NT has or not.
MS is having lots of problems with NT basically because they don't really
understand the basic code very well. NT at its heart is Digital's Xwindows
product licensed to MS with a Redmond GUI front end. Due to its Unix
heritage, legacy support for DOS apps must be very limited (any DOS app
which tries to run around the OS and access the hardware directly will
cause it to bomb).
> Microsoft tech support advises AGAINST running mission critical apps on
> Win95.
And for VERY GOOD reasons. There is little commonality between Win9x and
NT. The one thing the DO share is a creeping registry corruption problem.
> But I'll tell you the argument that stopped the debate in its tracks:
> Look at Microsofts' record of delivering what they promise when they
> promise it, and having it work right.
If more people around the world used their brains, MS would be out of
business in a year or less. Looks like you work for a well informed
company.
> Look at IBMs.
There was a time when IBM promised the moon, sun, and stars tomorrow. But
the Department of Justice under Ramsey Clark filed suit and forced IBM to
sign a consent decree under which they still operate more than 30 years
later. There were many parts of that decree, but the one appropos here is
that IBM agreed not to announce a product before it was ready. It seems
that IBM did some real damage to GE, Remington Rand, and others by
announcing a new product with more features at a lower price whenever a
competitor announced a new product. In at least one instance, the product
announced by IBM hadn't even been designed!
> I feel perfectly comfortable betting that OS/2 is a good decision.
Every MIS director needs to be looking at his/her hardware and software
NOW. I have tested well over 300 486 and Pentium machines in the past few
weeks. Only a handful (less than 5%) of the 486's can handle dates beyond
12/31/1999. Most of the Pentiums (about 90%) can. We are talking at the
hardware level here.
Software is a whole different story. IBM PC-DOS 7 is 2000 aware and can
handle date sorting, etc. properly provided it is run on a machine which
is also Y2K compliant. Warp 4 with the current FixPack applied is fully
2000 compliant. Neither Windows 3.x nor WIN 95 is. Reportedly Win 98 will
be (it likely will HAVE to be since it may not see the street before
1/1/00). NT is currently not but a new release is supposed to be.
Even on a machine with hardware and OS compatiblity, Year 2000 problems
can cause havoc with application software. I have found problems with
programs such as Quatro Pro. It handles dates beyond 2000 properly NOW,
but when run on a system set to a date in 2000, it barfs badly, causing
huge calculation errors. Reportedly, older versions of 1-2-3 do as well.
Some versions of WordPerfect handle the date while other releases do not.
Every app you run needs to be tested and tested at length on machines set
for a date in the year 2000. DO NOT TRY THIS ON A MACHINE TIED TO A NOVELL
4.X NETWORK. IT'S NOT 2000 COMPLIANT although Novell is working on a
release to fix this.
But, your companies' switch to Warp can eliminate most of those problems
if you use the SmartSuite for OS/2 currently in wide beta. All
applications in this suite (Organizer, Freelance Graphics, 1-2-3, WordPro
(used to be AmiPro), etc. are fully 2000 aware and compliant.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Germer from Mount Holly, NJ - E-mail: bge...@gbsias.com
Proudly running OS/2 Warp 4.0 w/ FixPack 5
MR/2 Ice Registration Number 67
The world would be better if Bill Gates skied like Sonny Bono.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Drumm
In message <34c054ef$3$otrezre$mr2...@news.gbsias.com> - Bob Germer
<bge...@gbsias.com> writes:
:->
:->There was a time when IBM promised the moon, sun, and stars tomorrow. But
:->the Department of Justice under Ramsey Clark filed suit and forced IBM to
:->sign a consent decree under which they still operate more than 30 years
:->later.
I was closer to 40 years, and the consent decree was lifted last year,
so it's no longer in effect.
Derrick Walton
Mike DaBull Harris wrote:
>
> On Thu, 15 Jan 1998 22:16:27, "Simon John Othen"
> <simo...@post.almac.co.uk> wrote:
>
> a good idea or what?
>
> applications your company intends to implement? OS/2 is NOT dead and
> IBM currently markets the OS more to the corporate user vs. that of the
> kitchentop user!
I personally use OS/2 in my company and I would encourage any company to
make the switch, or switch back to OS/2. I will NEVER rely on Windows95
(or any other flavor) to run my business again. I had way too many
problems that ended up costing me quite a bit of money to fix.
I use DOS software and some Windows 3.1 apps in my business. I have
found that the programs I use tend to run more efficiently and more
reliably under the OS/2 environment than they ever did under any Windows
flavor.
Now if your company relies on custom software and not "Off the shelf"
packages, than OS/2 is definately the way to go.
Another thing to look at is Microsoft's track record. They have
disappointed too many people in my opinion. They are in to make as much
money as possible and forget the end user. Their support has gone way
downhill. The quality of the products has been mediocre at best. If the
quality of the OS is poor, then any application, no matter how good,
will perform just as poor.
In my opinion, your company will save alot more money in the long run
and made a wise decision. They probably have a better look at the big
picture than you do!
Just my two cents worth.
--
WARP POWER, NINTENDO POWER, windows95 (Doesn't even have enough for ALL
CAPS!)
Michael Perry
My story FWIW. I work as a fullterm contractor the clothing company
called the GAP. I work in San Francisco and they also have a large MIS
presence down in San Bruno. The GAP has been and still is a big player
in the OS/2 area. We have probably 5000 desktops and fully 3000 are OS/2
warp or 2.1 desktops. Slowly and inexorably we are moving
(unfortunately) to NT; which in my limited opinion at installing on our
particular network reduces everyone to the "hurry up and wait" scenario.
I believe that OS/2 is a good alternative for us. Our business partners
routinely run 3 terminal sessions, perhaps two win os2 programs, two dos
programs, netscape, and maybe a small editor and command window. NT has
had some problems in this area; while OS/2 2.1 just percolates right along.
But still we move onward (not forward perhaps). I like supporting OS/2
here and installing OS/2 and using OS/2. I also like using linux as a
personal solution and soon a business solution for a company wide
intranet and database server.
In the final analysis I believe companies have to use what works for
them. Perhaps its no longer an "either-or" scenario but companies invest
in a solution which crosses OS specific boundaries to solve problems. I
would pose the question to other IT or MIS specialists. Does this solve
problems or tend to create new ones? Is this the irreversible direction
that modern MIS and/or IT departments will take to cope with legacy
programs and the need to run the latest-not so greatest "other" software?
We do dual workstations to allow people access to this or that program
designed to run on OS/2. Comments, questions, beliefs?
--
--Michael Perry--
mpe...@mperry.basin.com