The Chronicles of John Ominor- by John Ominor, The Inhuman

The masses have spoken. Netscape Communications in conjunction with IBM has announced the development of the Netscape Navigator for OS/2. This version of Netscape will include support that will allow OS/2, and OS/2 users only, to natively navigate the Internet with something straight out of science fiction itself. Their voices.

Include with this ability, frames and Netscape plug-in capabilities and suddenly, the entire expanse of the Internet lies within reach of John Ominor, the glorious Inhuman himself and his most worthy of servitors, the users of OS/2 Warp. Are you reading this Edward Leger, the Truthman? Do you fully comprehend that once again, the agenda of The Inhuman has proven you incorrect? It seems that Netscape's bitter struggle against Microsoft has caused it to reconsider its earlier decision to ignore the growing OS/2 market. The prodigal son has indeed returned home. I, for one, am glad to welcome him.

I am David H. McCoy, Avatar to John Ominor, The Inhuman. As Avatar, my mission sometimes carries me to incredible places, but none more hallowed than the halls of OS/2 e-Zine!. The Inhuman has given me a chance to deliver his message to all. No words could possibly do justice to the brilliance that is John Ominor, so I ask the forgiveness of all readers, most of all John Ominor for what is surely to be my failed attempt to stand in as his guest writer.

Know this though, these are truly the most exciting times for OS/2 marked by the second major OS/2 based game, Avarice: The Final Saga, the release of the eagerly awaited Object Desktop Professional and even the release of a graphics package known as Photo>Graphics from TrueSpectra Inc. Lotus SmartSuite is almost upon us, and even Netscape, a company that defines mainstream is porting to OS/2.

However, all is not perfect. Brad Wardell, the Chief Executive Officer of Stardock has reported via his Internet Relay Chat appearance that other OS/2 Independent Software Vendors are not entirely pleased with the current state of OS/2 (most likely in terms of sales and of course, IBM's mysterious motives). Brad also stated that some Windows 95 ports were in the future.

Still, Netscape, a company that should be paying me some kind of endorsement considering the number of times their name has been mentioned here, has shown that cross-platform support is crucial to remain ahead of Microsoft. IBM believes this. Check out the amount of beta software IBM is currently working on that is cross-platform. Multimedia software, Visual basic-like applications, compilers, WBI or Intelligent Agent (you should be downloading this now; it is free, stable and should make browsing a little more interesting -- despite what the directions say, do not turn off the image cache.)

So, should we worry about OS/2's future, about the concern of OS/2 ISVs? Perhaps... yet major Windows supporters such as Symantec and Corel have posted less than stellar profits and in some cases, losses. This is, of course, because of their decision to write only for Windows 95, the operating system that was supposed to change the way computers were used. It seems that now, a year after the release of Windows 95, the world is still the same complex machinery that it has always been and to some, computers are still difficult to grasp, let alone use. (By the way, where are those thousands of Win32 applications that the were promised? I don't see them.)

I know that some of you are not happy with the decision to bring in Steven Den Beste as a contributing author for OS/2 e-Zine!. He has already made a most grievous mistake in his last article implying that John Ominor had limitations. Now he is applying some kind of economic theory to explain why Windows 95 and Windows NT will succeed in outselling OS/2.

Technological advances do not matter he says. The major difference between Windows 3.x and Window 95 is the interface. That is clearly the one item in Windows 95 the everyone can agree has changed. The same is true for Windows NT. Let's be realistic, when people say Windows NT 4.0, other people think, "Oh yeah, it has the Windows 95 interface." This is what differentiates the newest Windows OSes from their siblings.

I feel that the VoiceType of OS/2 Warp 4.0 will have the same effect. Computer Shopper's September issue has an article on the different voice packages available, for Windows of course, and in the Monday 26, 1996 Business Week section of the Washington Post, they too talked about the newly blossoming importance of voice recognition. Now, guess which operating system was mentioned in both articles as the only one to have voice software included in the base package?

Who here used OS/2 Warp when it came out in November 1994? How many native e-mail packages were available at that time? Now, we have PMMail 1.52 (the personal choice of The Inhuman), MR/2 ICE 1.1, and Post Road Mailer 2.0. We have two graphics programs where before we had none. Several games, with more on the way, along with nearly 14 million users as stated by IBM in their Netscape announcement. All of this for a "dead" operating system which, incidentally, was the same adjective that flew around when OS/2 Warp 3.0 was released. And yet, here we are. Still growing, still finding and using more software and still contradicting the beliefs of computer industry analysts who can't see the forest for the trees.

Let's hear some noise people -- get excited. As a famous puppet from an ice tea commercial once said: "This gig's just gettin' started."

Fire up an app for me.


David H. McCoy is a full-time programmer and a rollerblading, volleyball & basketball playing, sci-fi book reading, happily married man who serves The most powerful Being in existence, John Ominor, The Inhuman, in his spare time.

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