Re: XyWrite

[Sam Little 70544,10]

 > in my small universe of a few thousand users and all of my friends
 > and colleagues with whom I have worked over about 15 years in the
 > computer business NOBODY, literally NOBODY, is using OS/2.

Remember, you are talking to people discussing XyWrite and LEWP. There is a
natural "fear," in a majority of computer users, of having to cope with
learning new ways of doing things (as opposed to ways of doing new things). If
people are still using decade-old word processors, sure some will be wary of
changing operating platforms!

That said, the next question is: how many of these people are INTERESTED in
using OS/2? I tend to discount the corporate thousands; corporate atmosphere
tends to influence such people. I'm the only committed OS/2 user in my (500+
PC) shop, and for a month, nobody but my immediate supervisor and the guy who
picked up a couple of copies for evaluation purposes new about it (I'd been
using it at home for a while).

 > My personal view is that it [OS/2] won't even challenge Apple for OS
 > market share unless Microsoft screws up.

You want to visit this one again in, say, September or so? If Warp sales have
been averaging about 100K/week, and a 6M installed base before Warp, compared
to 10M Mac systems, it may not be that long after all, paticularly if
Enterprise and PowerPC versions of OS/2 are out by that time (probably and
probably not, respectively).

 > If "XyWrite" is looking for a comeback opportunity an HTML driver
 > rather than SGML driver (though that wouldn't hurt) would FAR
 > OUTSELL an OS/2 version of the product. (from your earlier post)

Since HTML is just a subset of SGML, the latter easily implies the former by
simply including the proper DTD as part of the package. I can't deny that such
a package wouldn't outsell a XyWrite port to OS/2, although XyDOS in OS/2
outperforms all OS/2 wp software I've tried, which might bode well for such a
product.

 > I don't use [OS/2] and nobody I know uses it.

Then you and your compatriots are limiting your own options, as OS/2 will run
probably all of your Windows apps (WordWin 6 works quite well, thank you).
Since scientists tend to do a lot of number crunching, how much time do they
spend twiddling their thumbs waiting for a response from their computer? How
many times do they have to reboot their system a week?


 -Sam [Info. Access Co./TBI], 01:42
  using OS/2 v2.1 & GCP v2.11.