SOUND OFF!


The purpose of this section is to provide a forum for our readers to voice their opinions and thoughts on issues related to OS/2. If you have an observation, concern, gripe or compliment regarding something, please feel free to send them to the OS/2 CONNECT editor for inclusion in this section, at: Title & Publisher or complete the form at the bottom of this page.

The opinions expressed in this section are those of the individual writer and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the editor or publisher of OS/2 CONNECT. NOTE: Letters may be edited for inappropriate or offensive language.


LIKEWISE

I echo the comments of those who ask for more or better OS/2 support for SOHO. There is, however, one comment that I must make in this regard to my work needs: word processing. The word processing program I like the least is MS Word; I use DeScribe because it is native OS/2, but also it eats very little system resources. WordPro is very impressive. BUT the one quality that I desperately need for my work is WordPerfect's Reveal Codes. This is a must for editors. No one else has copied it. Why? And why doesn't Corel make an OS/2 version?

- F.M. Macri
PC Call Home
Toronto, ON, Canada

SWITCH TO NT?

I have been using OS/2 since version 2.1 and really like it, I am currently running version 4.0 and think it's the best yet, except for the drag & drop behavior IBM screwed up. I think Open32 will only help stop native apps being written for OS/2, Java is way too slow, and IBM doesn't care about its customers. All I can say is when I run NT, I will not buy any apps from IBM!

I do have an idea for IBM to help them get everyone off of OS/2 and on to NT, buy all OS/2 users a copy of NT!

- Matt Linder
Xenia, OH, USA

CONSOLIDATE OS/2 SALES

One possible solution to what some perceive as "lack of business" definition to IBM might be the following. Get ONE (and only one) vendor to carry Warp 4. It doesn't matter if it is Indelible Blue or somebody else, but it is important that it be only one vendor. All other vendors could buy via this vendor, at a reduced rate. End-users could buy from these vendors, if one-stop-shopping is desired. The result would be that this one vendor could DEMAND action from IBM, under the model they want to see ("put this in, or 10,000 sales walk away" ). If done correctly, the "little" guys would become the single biggest consumer of OS/2. Some might say that this would result in price-fixing or anti-trust violations. Rubbish! There is plenty of precedent (named "Microsoft") that anti-trust laws aren't being seriously applied anymore. Besides, this would be an effort by the CONSUMERS of the product to increase their sway with the VENDOR, and not the other way around. Now with all that said, I must admit that I don't care at all for Win32 support in OS/2. Don't need it. Don't want it. Don't think I could stand the unstable results that would ensue (why do you think NT and '95 are so unreliable?).

- John Drabik
Automated Warehousing, Inc.
Draper, UT, USA

HOW WILL IBM GROW?

I would like to put forward for comment the following observation regarding the future of OS/2: it will either be successful (to a greater or lesser extent) or it will fall into disuse - the situation cannot continue as it is at the moment. I base this judgement on an examination of where IBM has been over the last five years and where it will go over the next five. Gerstner took over as CEO about five years ago and, like all CEOs, his principal measurement was the stock price. In this he has done well, increasing the stock value by a factor of 4. This has been primarily due to the major company reconstruction, successful growth in the services business and, to a lesser extent, the high end CMOS kicker. I would suggest that the reconstruction and the CMOS kicker are now fully reflected in the stock price and have no more to give but services continue to be buoyant.

The major IT growth area in which IBM has participated poorly over the last five years, however, is the end-user market (PC, LAN, client/server). Looking forward, Gerstner's challenge is to do the same again to the stock price over his next five years; so how does he get the stock price to $400? My analysis of the IT market suggests that in the mainframe and midrange market, growth will be largely offset by increases in price/performance and licensed software and hardware maintenance will be steady-as-she-goes; the two major growth areas will be services and the end-user market. IBM services are showing healthy growth (albeit on market share rather than strong profits) and there is every expectation that this will continue. However, I believe IBM itself (and I am deliberately putting Lotus to one side here, because it will have to make its own independent contribution to IBM's bottom line) is poorly positioned to take advantage of the explosive growth which many observers are predicting to take place in the end-user market. IBM's three product offerings - the home PC, the business PC and OS/2 - have been constantly losing market share over the last five years in a rapidly growing marketplace. Furthermore, I cannot see vigorous growth in the stock price driven solely by services and believe IBM will have to participate and succeed in the end-user marketplace as well. If my analysis is correct, it means that something will have to be done to turn around the current end-user market malaise - and this something will either successfully turn the corner or fail and marginalise IBM's presence in this marketplace into a dependency on Lotus' success - and I do not believe that Lotus alone will deliver a sufficient end-user market contribution to stock price growth. So I believe that IBM's performance in the end-user market in 1998 will be crucial to its future success, which implies focussed interest by Gerstner himself at board level.

Finally, I suspect that Gerstner has already claimed an (unwelcome) entry in the Harvard Business School case study hall of fame for the OS/2 marketing fiasco he oversaw during his first period of tenure! I cannot imagine he wants to compete again for another slot!

- Derrick Price
Farnham, UK

BETTING ON JAVA

Last month I wrote an extended letter describing IBM's corporate business model. It was pessimistic, setting out little hope for the SOHO user under that model. I have just read Dan Porter's comments on the future of Java. Specifically, "dramatic enhancements to Java. IBM has released beta versions of high performance compilers to convert Java runtime class files into code optimized for specific platforms. These exciting compilers will be provided for OS/2 Warp, OS/2 Warp Server, Windows NT, Windows 95, and AIX." Perhaps Java will save Warp for the SOHO user. IBM is pouring enormous resources into Java. If it really does become a powerful, fast application development platform, and if, as Porter believes, the criterion for applications becomes, "How well will it run in Java," then I can easily see a reved up Wordperfect for Java, running under OS/2. I am hopeful. Java may pull it out for us, even under IBM's model, if IBM will really support Java SOHO application development.

- Charlou Koenig
MDI Labs, Inc.
San Antonio, TX, USA

STOP THE WHINING!

Oh my, what a bunch of pathological losers!! Stop crying and enjoy Warp! Be proud! Be happy! Show some dignity! Develop! Promote! Encourage! I would rather read stories about the MS evil empire than this endless loop of rubbish.

- Mike Rivard
Seattle, WA, USA

HAVE WE BEEN PROGRAMMED?

I started using OS/2 2.1 after trying to get Win3.1 to run more than one DOS program at a time. I saw an associate who used Windows 3.1 restart his machine many times during a day. When I told him that I never had to do that, he said "do what?" Should I say that he was "in denial" about this? He didn't see this as a problem. At that time there were three PCs in our company: my desktop, a DOS machine used for QC and acoustic measurements (linked to my desktop with Lantastic) and the associates machine. Our machines did not have to talk to each other which was fortunate. I could not have relied on his machine for anything. These days we have nine machines tied to a server running Novell 4.11. The other machines run Win 95. They appear very much like mine and are more reliable than the earlier ones were. Why do I get the feeling that these machines are running a cute imitation of what I have been using for years? Maybe these tools have to have parts that seem to be made for children: Wizards are supposed to help you? Don't "wizard"s have unruly long hair and gleeful looks in their eyes. Have we been programmed to trust people who appear to be nuts?

- Allan Sohl
Professional Audio Systems
Carlsbad, CA, USA

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