Last week, I was on the road at Microsoft’s TechEd conference and had a chance to chat with a number of my peers, some Microsoft customers, and a large number of Microsoft executives. Things are changing rapidly at that company: The Windows group is largely new, Bill Gates is mostly gone, and the company’s strategy is increasingly driven by folks who seem to understand open source. Computex took place last week, and the major battles were between AMD, Intel and little Via. There were a number of products announced that may redefine just how small a computer is.
Rob, OS/2 2.0 was released by IBM in 1992 as a $49 upgrade from Windows 3,x, the first shot of several large marketing moves made by IBM related to OS/2. That was followed by OS/2 2.1 in 1993, OS/2 Warp 3 in 1994, and OS/2 Warp 4 in 1996. Windows NT 3.1 was released by Microsoft in 1993, so there was a *considerable* overlap between products using the new Cutler-designed Windows NT kernel and IBM's 32-bit OS/2 offerings. How does that jive with your observation that "IBM had internal studies -- I know this because I did them -- that indicated its strategy with OS/2 simply wouldn't work. Yet it ignored all evidence to the contrary and killed OS/2 years before Windows NT, Microsoft's true competitive offering -- basically a clean room version of OS/2 -- could get to market." It seems to me like IBM killed OS/2 years AFTER the release of Windows NT, not years before. While IBM PCCO was very much pro-Windows, IBM PSP was rather focused on OS/2 during that time. Don't forget that IBM is a hydra -- some fiefdoms within IBM operate at cross-purposes.
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Posted by: Rob Enderle June 11, 2007 04:00 AMLast week, I was on the road at Microsoft’s TechEd conference and had a chance to chat with a number of my peers, some Microsoft customers, and a large number of Microsoft executives. Things are changing rapidly at that company: The Windows group is largely new, Bill Gates is mostly gone, and the company’s strategy is increasingly driven by folks who seem to understand open source. Computex took place last week, and the major battles were between AMD, Intel and little Via. There were a number of products announced that may redefine just how small a computer is.
That was followed by OS/2 2.1 in 1993, OS/2 Warp 3 in 1994, and OS/2 Warp 4 in 1996.
Windows NT 3.1 was released by Microsoft in 1993, so there was a *considerable* overlap between products using the new Cutler-designed Windows NT kernel and IBM's 32-bit OS/2 offerings.
How does that jive with your observation that "IBM had internal studies -- I know this because I did them -- that indicated its strategy with OS/2 simply wouldn't work. Yet it ignored all evidence to the contrary and killed OS/2 years before Windows NT, Microsoft's true competitive offering -- basically a clean room version of OS/2 -- could get to market."
It seems to me like IBM killed OS/2 years AFTER the release of Windows NT, not years before.
While IBM PCCO was very much pro-Windows, IBM PSP was rather focused on OS/2 during that time.
Don't forget that IBM is a hydra -- some fiefdoms within IBM operate at cross-purposes.