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  • Subject: Re: Free OS/400
  • From: ken shields <kjs@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 01 Jul 2001 13:08:33 -0400

Simon you wrote:

"So you blindly followed the mass of lemmings rather than excerise some
technical discretion and look for alternatives?"

I could easily say the same thing about Big Blue back in the 70's and 80's.
Be kind..
The world , people and business, sometimes run in directions we simply can't control, even you must realise this.
I think fear of change comes into play here, being the consumate technocrate back then, I opted for a system that , at the time was technically superior to IBM's midrange solution, and after careful examination, and comparison chose an HP3000.
That solution was correct for it's time, and proved the right choice, they even provided easy porting and re-compilation of the RPG source code, with a few twigs.
That choice however; hurt my career mobility after that point, for , when I left that
arena, I found a very narrow and bigoted world of people who sang only 'Blue'.
I quite often get a severe migraine, having to deal with the multitude of technologies
, and I'm sure you experience the same thing.
One other thing in passing, the decision to pick the 'right' technology, is more than often made today, over lunch, by individuals who have the corporal power and purchasing authority that we do not. The results of those decisions, more than likely cause ghastly problems and fill the midrange-l mailing list.
Finger pointing just doesn't cut it.
 

Simon Coulter wrote:

Hello Nina,

You wrote:
>i didn't write any letters to ibm, but in the mid 90's we were on the
>microsoft bandwagon.  and i couldn't even begin to explain why, it seemed
>like everyone was doing it.  so that was the place to be.  i knew about
>os/2 but it wasn't where the business comunity was.  kinda like mac's....

So you blindly followed the mass of lemmings rather than excerise some
technical discretion and look for alternatives?  Just because your
customers may have been using Winslop doesn't mean you had to.  Documents
and files can be interchanged between Win, Mac, Unix, and OS/2 relatively
painlessly.

>lockups, rebooting, etc, just seemed to be a way of life with p/c's.  i
>didn't realize until later that these things were bill gate's doing.  and
>if you took a poll amoung average users, i would imagine that most people
>still don't realize this.  if they did, there would be more outrage about
>bill gates and his 40% profit margin, and how we all suffer because of it
>(not that he makes money but he is not held accountable).

But you knew computers didn't have to be like that.  Your main business
computer wasn't like that. So why didn't you look for alternatives?  You
wouldn't tolerate that behaviour from your car or your toaster.  So why
accept it from another commodity item?

>i do not know about deals between microsoft and ibm.  but i don't think
>ibm got the word out on a wide enough basis that os/2 was stable and
>reliable. after windows 95 was released, as buggy as ever, ibm should have
>shouted from the rooftops that their p/c operating system was reliable.
>that would have made people want to use it, not feel that they had to.

Granted, IBM could have done a better marketing job but they've never been
very good at that.  IBM wanted access to Win95 for their PC business.  They
are hardly likely to shout from the rooftops that it is crap!  IBM never
forced you to run OS/2.  They did create products (CODE/400, VRPG,
SmallTalk AS/400 Connection) that ran only on OS/2.  So what!  No one
complained about MS products only running on Windoze.  If you wanted the
tools you should have bought the required OS.  After all, isn't that how
software purchasing decisions should be made?  Buy the software that does
what you need and then choose the best OS which supports that software.

However, that doesn't excuse the fact that a technical investigation would
have shown that OS/2 was superior and available and had the applications
necessary for business.  However, if all you read were the articles in
News/400 and Midrange from the likes of Roger Pence bleating about how IBM
should provide Windoze versions of their tools then you were ill-informed.
And since most of the letters to the editor in those rags agreed with
Pence's views then I guess you all got what you deserved.

And recite the following: SHIFT KEY, SHIFT KEY, SHIFT KEY ... it's not that
difficult.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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--
Best Regards
Ken Shields
Home phone: 905 404-2062
Bus  phone  905 725-1144 (326)
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