Send a letter to the editor.Lately there seems to be significant momentum for OS/2. With retail sales results that some claim are dismal for Windows 95 and the powerful surge in sales to finish what was already a good year for OS/2, some might wonder if our underdog has a chance in the mind-share war after all. Certainly the release of Merlin sometime around the middle of this year is already starting to get the OS/2 faithful worked up into an evangelistic frenzy once again. But are things really getting better?
It seems so. For years, a major complaint of users and ISV's alike has been the near-constant spreading of the, "OS/2 is dead," FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) and the relative silence of IBM officials denouncing it. These rumours, they complained, kept users from buying OS/2 and ISV's from writing for it in a vicious cycle that has kept the consumer software market small despite the millions of OS/2 users worldwide. Recently John Soyring, VP of IBM's Personal Software Products Division, emphatically, officially and publicly denounced these rumours on the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.os2.advocacy (see his complete letter in this issue). And it looks like it wasn't a one time thing. Hopefully, his repeated and positive presence on the Internet supporting OS/2 will finally help dispel the FUD that comes so regularly from that other newsgroup, comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy (or, as it is called, c.o.m.a).
This isn't IBM's only official effort at making a serious contender out of Warp either. While browsing the labyrinthine IBM web pages this month, I came across an interesting Warp site. It's quite thorough, with links to every kind of OS/2 information a potential customer might need. It's well laid out and allows browsers to order a copy of Warp right from the page. And It plainly states that IBM is committed to Warp. None of these are the reason I found it interesting though.
The interesting thing about this page (and it's sub-pages), is it's tone. With headings like, "Been there, done that ... for some time now," (in reference to Warp's advanced features), "All the Warped news from the beginning of time," (archived OS/2 announcements) and, "Start your propellers (Tech Stuff | Developer Support | Beta Programs)" this looks like a page out of Wired Magazine, not IBM's WWW site.
IBM is obviously not expecting to win over IS managers with this kind of in-your-face, 'net-hip propaganda. They're looking for MS converts. They're focusing directly on the Windows 95 using, Sega Saturn playing, "Friends" watching end user. They're pushing OS/2 as a home computer OS. There can be no doubt that IBM is serious about OS/2 as a long-term personal OS.
Another great example of this is the Just Add OS/2 Warp web ads that are popping up everywhere. During the course of this month I was treated to this add on both Yahoo's and Point's WWW sites (BTW, did you hear that Point has voted OS/2 e-Zine! among the top 5% on the WWW?). These ads are just as down to earth as the page mentioned above. They cut right to the chase by telling users they have a choice in operating systems and telling them how to order or download the Just Add OS/2 Warp software. This software gives users info and helps them upgrade to Warp from Windows 3.x or Windows 95. Again, these ads and the Just Add OS/2 Warp software are not going to win over IS professionals; they're meant to convert the "average user".
So what have we got? OS/2 is selling better than ever and Merlin isn't even here yet. IBM is publicly and officially supporting OS/2 for both the office and the home. IBM's advertising and marketing seem to be taking a turn for the better. Are things really getting better? Definitely!
Things haven't looked so good for OS/2 since the early hype of the joint IBM-MS development. In fact, things look so good that one of our contributors recently predicted on the newsgroups that Microsoft would be writing native OS/2 versions of its software by the end of 1996. Well, maybe that's getting a little ahead of ourselves considering the almost official animosity between MS and the OS/2 world in the past year. Let's expect it to happen by the end of 1997.
Copyright © 1996 - Falcon Networking
