EDITORIAL PAGE

TRANSITIONING FROM OS/2?

    There has been disturbing news recently from IBM referring to how to transition away from OS/2 to other platforms. In IBM's Strategy statement they make it clear that customers should be prepping themselves for moving to another platform, preferably Linux. The IBM Services company will, of course, offer technical services for transforming OS/2 apps into e-business apps... for a price. Hell, they should be doing it free for all of us who invested heavily in such applications.

    Perhaps the most notable news though was the OS/2 SERVER TRANSITION draft document produced on September 16th which outlined how to move away from OS/2 Warp Server to Windows 2000 and Linux. This set OS/2 users abuzz, particularly in our Discussion Group. I'm sure this will be the center of attention at the Warpstock conference in San Francisco on October 18th-19th (just as this publication goes to press).

    Such talk from IBM about transitioning has triggered renewed interest in making OS/2 an "open source" product. This, unfortunately, will not happen simply because of IBM's licensing agreements with Microsoft and now Serenity Systems International, makers of eComStation.

    The only one who seems to be on the ball these days is Sun Microsystems who through their "Project Mad Hatter" initiative, which includes the OpenOffice suite (as we discussed last month). Sun is very much interested in courting the OS/2 users with open-source technology (see related story from "Computer Business Review"). Its nice to know, that at least someone out there is interested in us.
     

    Keep the Faith!

   

- Tim Bryce
Editor, OS/2 CONNECT

Please do not hesitate to send me an e-mail