RE: Free OS/400

Well said Simon!

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon Coulter [mailto:shc@flybynight.com.au]
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2001 20:06
To: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Free OS/400

Hello Nina,

You wrote:
>you missed the point in your rush to be critical.....

Criticism is character forming.  I expect technical people to make
technical decisions. If you are simply a user then you can ignore what I
say.  It was the bleating tone in your note that elicited my response.

>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???

Because way back in the early days there were many choices of OS for PC
hardware.  CPM (in single user and multi user form), DOS, DR DOS, OS/2,
Qnix, Xenix.  The Mac was around too although very expensive compared to
PCs.  You should have been keeping abreast of technology.  Reading articles
in various magazines, seeing advertisments, THINKING instead of believing. 
Faith might give you a wonderful feeling but it doesn't stand up under the
application of logic.   It is reasonable to expect IT people to know this.

>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.

So you didn't see the IBM advertisements that said OS/2 was a better
Windows than Windows?  The ones showing a user printing a document as a
background task while continuing to run foreground tasks that didn't slow
down due to the print run?  IBM ran a whole serious of ads showing why OS/2
was better than Windows.  They called NT a Nice Try and did the same again
with Warp 3.  The later OS/2 ads (the foreign language ones for Warp 4)
were a bit weird but they were intended to get you thinking.  "What is this
OS/2?  I'll give them a call and find out about it."  That sort of thing.

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

That's no excuse.  (The law doesn't accept it either.) IBM is full of
ignorant people just like any other big company -- mostly at the managerial
level.  (Don't confuse ignorance with stupidity -- senior managers are
generally not stupid but they can be truly ignorant.)

>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.

Well, they tried the business oriented ads and you didn't buy, so they
tried to be different (like the Mac) and that didn't work either.  I think
your argument is specious and you're a sucker for the marketing line.  You
don't want to make a desicion -- you want to be told what to do (but told
nicely so you aren't aware of it).

>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.

So!  If the tools helped in your job why not buy the OS that supports them? 
Even when IBM did start making these tools available on Windows (CODE and
VARPG) it took years for people to start using them.  The problem has
nothing to do with the tools or the OS but rather the dullness of the
midrange market.  Midrange managers generally won't spend money (SEU was
good enough for me AND we've already paid for it) an
midrange programmers
generally don't want to learn anything new (RPG IV, ILE, CODE, etc.) Some
people on these lists are moving that way but they are the exception rather
than the norm.

>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.

It has always been obvious to those with open eyes and ears.  MS are a
first rate marketing organization and third rate software company. 
Microsoft make the gullible believe that what MS have is what you want
rather than the reverse.  IBM have never been very good at that.  So you're
quite happy to have MS tell you what to do so long as they do it nicely and
hide the arrogance?  Excuse me while I throw up ...

>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.

They tried.  Again I reference the ads mentioned above.  One of the major
hurdles with software was the fact that OS/2 supported W3.1 applications. 
It proved very difficult to get software vendors to write an OS/2 version
of an application (one that was multi-threaded and took advantage of the
platform) because that required additional investment.  A vendor would
reason that with a single code base they could support both Win31 and OS/2.
(And they got the advantage of running multiple Win31 sessions under OS/2.)
Users were generally ignorant of the difference. The software seemed to do
what they needed so they were happy.  Nett result was few native OS/2
applications.  (A few of you might like to consider the effect that
supporting native Unix applications via PASE etc. will have on AS/400
software.)

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

Again, you seek to pass the responsiblity on to IBM.  Even if you didn't
know about OS/2 you must have known about Apple.  They advertised widely
and cleverly.  They were a viable alternative even in the early days.  They
were more expensive than the PC equivalent but you got something for your
money -- a system that worked reliably.

I'm not going to continue this discussion any more.  You and others on this
list have been made aware of alternative operating systems, many of which
have good application support.  If you want a better desktop environment
then put your money where your mouth is.  Buy a Mac, buy eCommStation, buy
a Linux distribution, and format the windows partition.  It's your choice! 
But if you choose to stay with Winslop then don't winge.

Regards,
Simon Coulter.

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