[Am-info] Re: adopting alternative OSes

[Mitch Stone]

I can't pretend to speak to internal IBM management issues, except to 
observe that IBM's PC division was/is part of the greater company, and 
if the company was committed to OS/2, so would the PC division be 
committed. (People do after all generally prefer to keep their jobs.)

I don't entirely agree that the IBM name worked against OS/2 in the OEM 
world. It was after all the IBM name which give credibility to the 
entire PC clone market. As we all certainly remember, PC clones were 
for years marketed as "IBM-PC compatibles" and shipped with IBM PC-DOS 
(aka MS-DOS). What did work against IBM was of course Microsoft's 
half-nelson on the OEM industry. But, if any company had the 
wherewithal to break that lock, it was IBM. In order to do so, they 
would have been forced to make choices we probably all probably agree 
they should not have been forced to make, that is, between Windows and 
OS/2. They would have needed the guts to get the glory and 
unfortunately they didn't want the glory badly enough.

On Sunday, April 27, 2003, at 10:34 AM, madodel@ptdprolog.net wrote:

> It was the IBM PC Manufacturing division which was one of the most 
> vocal
> critics of OS/2 within IBM.  They only wanted to support Microsoft
> products.  You can't buy an IBM PC or laptop with OS/2 preloaded for 
> years
> now.  And the IBM name attached to OS/2 tended to sink the chances of 
> OS/2
> to ever be seriously adopted as an OEM operating system for other PC
> manufacturers.  And finally to bring this back on topic a bit, 
> Microsoft
> made damn sure they sabotaged any chance for OS/2 to compete in the OEM
> market.  There are still several fake OS/2 users hovering within the 
> OS/2
> Usenet groups to attack anyone that actually tries to do anything 
> positive
> in the OS/2 usability area.  Some are blatantly pro-Microsoft (like
> Microsoft needs any evangelising) and some purport to be OS/2 users 
> but do
> every thing they can to sabotage new development.  They all deny being 
> on
> Microsoft's payroll, and some may be genuine nutcases, but its weird 
> how
> they all come out of the woodwork whenever a new release is pending.
> There is even a web site devoted to trying to explain some of these
> nitwits.
   -----------
   Mitch Stone
   mitch@accidentalexpert.com

   The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
   always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
   --- Bertrand Russell