Re: XyWrite udner Linux [was:Partitioned drives, Win98 & otherOSes]

["J. R. Fox" jr_fox@xxxxxxxxxx]

> > I have only kudos for Serenity Systems. I suppose they
> > have been persuasive, but to me it feels like the support they have wangled from
> > IBM is more acquiesent than active.

Robert Holmgren wrote:

> It looks to me like everything Serenity has offered, every fix or improvement
> they've made available, has been obtained from IBM, or facilitated by IBM.

> Without those IBM contributions, Serenity amounts to exactly nothing.

Not entirely correct. See below.

> I don't quite get the point of eCS. IBM offers a fixpack on Software Choice for MCP
>
> (Convenience Packages), and a week later Serenity offers the same thing to its
> customers. What are they providing that you can't get direct from IBM? Plus
> there's all the testcase stuff -- if you're alert, you can grab packages that
> are really intended only for OS/2 server (for example). And I keep up-to-date!
> My whole system is dated October 2002.
>
> What IS the point, anyway? I would love to know.

O.K., Robert, here's a partial answer, at least. You'll have to judge if it means
anything to you.

 1) If you subscribed fairly early, eCS was a much better deal vs. SWC.
 2) Serenity packaged some substantial freebies -- like Lotus Smartsuite 1.6, now 1.7
-- in with their distro.
 3) If you find a bona fide problem, Serenity can open an APAR with IBM on it. You
can't do that as an individual IBM customer (unless Scott Garfinkle, Mike Kaply, or
one of those guys is your best bud . . . ). I think you would have to have many 1000s
of seats from IBM to exercise that sort of clout.
 4) The ECS "Upgrade Protection Plan" (no longer offered, but which I purchased while
it was available) is more comprehensive, for less, than SWC. We will get ECS 1.1 when
it ships -- the whole shebang -- as a matter of course. The only drawback, which you
noted, was that many driver updates etc. show up a few days later at EcomStation than
at SWC. No biggie.

 5) Serenity updated several Look & Feel items for ECS, such as icons and dialog
boxes, which many observers regarded as rather dated in OS/2. I guess this is a
matter of taste. It still doesn't approach the slick pizazz of the Windows GUI, for
those who care about that sort of thing.
 6) Serenity integrated things like XWorkplace and Warp-In (all optional), which will
be more extensive in 1.1.
 7) Serenity deserves a lot of credit for keeping the OS alive as a *consumer*
product, a market _abandoned_ by IBM. Had they not convinced IBM to let them do this,
the future of the OS would be significantly bleaker. Not many potential *individual*
users are going to seek out SWC, or pay what the SWC subscription costs. Serenity is
doing some marketing things (starting overseas, in places where OS/2 retains more of a
presence than it does stateside) that I probably should not talk about right now,
since it was said to be privileged info at the time I heard it.

 8) Now this could be the biggie -- though perhaps not to a more accomplished user
like yourself. It is widely felt that _one_ of the main reasons Warp falied
commercially, back when it was going head to head with the expected, then initially
released W95, was that it had the reputation (to some degree deserved) of being
finicky with hardware, difficult to install and configure properly. Whereas WIN had
that famous rep of hand-holding all the way, readily guiding & gliding the user right
through the process -- even if it made most of the choices for you and greatly
constrained your options in so doing. In point of fact, the OS-install process for
Warp truly **sucked.** It was quite obtuse, confusing, with ample opportunity for
serious mis-steps. So the argument goes, had IBM had a soup-to-nuts automatic
installer, like that of WIN, there might have been a different outcome to the
contest. (Of course, you'd still have an IBM that was pretty clueless at marketing to
the consumer market, and the mafia-like business tactics employed by MS to contend
with, so how much of a difference it really would have made is unknowable.) Anyway,
Serenity has completely redone the OS-installer, and it's now pretty good and will
soon be better still. Does this come too late ? Maybe. Probably. Depends on
whether Serenity has any brilliant marketing aces up its sleeve. They will be trying
to do something virtually impossible, with no budget at all behind them.

Jordan