Re: Free OS/400

> 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?

you missed the point in your rush to be critical.....

we were a green screen system 36 shop when we started getting p/c's.  and they
were used for traditional p/c applications,
things like lotus, wordperfect, and quicken.  and every one said how unreliable
p/c's were and how dependable the 36 and later
the as/400 was.  this was standard ibm'er fare when a system was being sold.
'you don't want to put it on a p/c, they're toooo
unreliable.'   and 'the 'p' stands for personal, it's not meant to run your
business'.  so we expected p/c's to be less reliable.  after hearing a steady
diet of this, why should i have concluded it was not the p/c but the microsoft
operating system???

when we bought p/c's they came with microsoft technology.  and occasionally we
had p/c projects using access or
Fox pro.  no one anywhere said that we should be using os/2.

i never worked for ibm.  so you'll have to forgive my ignorance.

> 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!

so ibm didn't wouldn't even get the word out that microsoft was crap????  in
fact, at that time, ibm had stupid commercials about the os/2 warp, with kids
with wild hair and flying nuns.  that was supposed to make me want to rush to 
the
store and buy a copy for my business?  and after hearing for years from ibm'ers
that p/c's were inferior and unreliable, why should we have concluded os/2 was
better?  especially if ibm was afraid to say so themselves.

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!

it was the arrogance in how it was presented that was irritating.  and obviously
i wasn't the only one.  i never heard any reasons why you should use os/2.  only
if you wanted to use ibm's tools you had to.

granted microsoft does that too, but in the mid 90's it wasn't as obvious. you
p/c came with windows, and you went to the store and bought windows products.
i'm not sure at that time i even knew who bill gates was.

if ibm wanted to make os/2 successful, first of all, they needed to let the
customer base know os/2 was better and why.
 and offer real alternatives to make it the user's preferred operating system.
such as readily available and affordable commercial software that would replace
that sold for microsoft systems.

but you said yourself ibm would not address the fact that it was windows that 
was
unreliable.  so here we are.

nj

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