A funny thing happened the other day when I got my copy of Warp 4...

And I mean funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha.

As many of you know, Warp 4 comes with a neat little folder on the Desktop titled "Connections", in which there are sub-folders for "Printers", "Drives", and (most important for this story) "Web Sites". This is a standard structure set up on every Warp 4 Desktop across the world.

Inside the "Web Sites" folder are further sub-folders containing, just as you would expect, URL objects pointing to common and interesting web sites covering many topics. Naturally there is an "OS/2 Related Web Pages" folder.

Some time ago when the Merlin beta was shipped to about 10,000 people I noticed that this folder was missing OS/2 e-Zine! 's URL but that it did contain the URL for Warp Online, another WWW-based OS/2 publication. Naturally, I contacted IBM and asked who I needed to speak with to ensure that the final version of Warp 4 included our URL as well -- after all, I didn't want the masses to miss out on "The Best OS/2 Reading ANYWHERE." (TM) The gentleman I spoke with at IBM's Media Relations told me to send him an e-mail and he would make sure it got to the appropriate person. I did.

For the next few months, I occasionally called or e-mailed this person at Media Relations, sometimes to check on the status of our URL, sometimes for other matters. In all those months I never did manage to speak to him about our URL.

So, after I finally installed Warp 4, I had a look in the "OS/2 Related Web Pages" folder. Nothing.

There was Warp Online all right, but OS/2 e-Zine! was nowhere to be found. Corigan Computer's OS/2 Links was there as was Peter Norloff's OS/2 Shareware BBS. There was even a page simply titled "OS/2 Links". But no OS/2 e-Zine!.

Hmmm... I thought, maybe it's in another folder. I tried "Computing". Nope. Adobe, Corel and ZD-Net (publishers of various on-line magazines) were there but not Haligonian Media (publishers of OS/2 e-Zine! ).

I tried "News and Sports"; this was a big one so I had a brief moment of hope. Still no luck. The New York Times was there, but not e-Zine!.

"Entertainment": another big one that didn't include us. HotWired and iGuide were there but not the Internet's favourite OS/2 magazine.

"Reference": Nope. "Education": Nothing. "Business & Shopping": Zilch.

In fact, my friend at IBM let me down. OS/2 e-Zine! is not anywhere to be found in the list of URLs that will ship to every Warp 4 Desktop for years to come. People will have to keep finding us the way they have always been, by word of mouth and by our print and WWW advertisements. So be it.

So why is Warp Online there and how did it get in the list so early on in the process, you ask? After all OS/2 e-Zine! has been publishing far longer than Warp Online right? Well, to be completely honest, that's not the point. I'm glad Warp Online is in the list -- it should be. And so should OS/2 e-Zine!.

Think about it: sure HotWired is likely of interest to those who purchase Warp 4; but OS/2 e-Zine!, a magazine which has been publishing monthly since 1995 and which (like Warp Online) caters solely to OS/2, is probably of more interest. If IBM in general isn't focused on OS/2, I can understand; IBM is a big company after all. But if the people putting together OS/2 itself can't manage to include (please excuse my immodesty) the Internet's best OS/2 related Web site, well that's another thing.

I can accept that IBM is a big company and one employee doesn't always communicate with another. I can not accept that in deciding to compile a list of sites relevant to purchasers of Warp 4, no-one in IBM asked around to see what current users of OS/2 were interested in. And I definitely can not accept that despite being contacted directly by OS/2 e-Zine!, IBM still didn't realize we were here.

But in the end, I have to accept that. Because the only other explanation I can imagine is even more unthinkable: that IBM just doesn't consider us relevant.

It's a good thing that IBM is such a big company. Otherwise it would be hard to love them so much and be so angry at them.

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