OS/2 Lives. Does XyWrite?

[jgordon@xxxxxxxx (John Gordon)]

Hi folks and Season's Greetings to all,

Activity here on the Xy list has been a bit slow recently so I thought
I'd comment on the forbidden topic: a certain operating system.
Over the last 3 or 4 months more and more regular posters to this
list appear to be using OS/2. This doesn't surpise me since it
makes such a powerful combination with *any* of the versions of
our favourite word processor. Elements of the popular computer
press, however, seem intent on again proclaiming OS/2 dead. This
has happened annually for at least the last 5 years, yet the
warhouse continues to live. In fact it is thriving.

For anyone doubting IBM's commitment to OS/2 the following web site is a must read:
http://www.austin.ibm.com/pspinfo/m7strat.htm

Highlights:

"Businesses continue to show confidence in OS/2. In the third
quarter, international businesses such as QBE Australia, Banca
Commerciale Italiana and Sumitomo Japan chose OS/2 Warp over NT.
 In the US, NationsBank began their second regional rollout of
its OS/2/ Warp based Model Banking System. Even more recently,
the US Navy chose OS/2 Warp for over 400,000 workstations. How
can we possibly let OS/2 die when these new customers depend on
OS/2 being around for a long time? And we certainly can't
abandon our long standing, loyal customers either.

"OS/2's next release will please power user and corporate
customers too. It will correct the problems associated with the
I/O queue and enhance resource management capabilities for better
support of plug and play adapters. Corporate customers will find
Merlin includes new levels of security enablement that will get
them to full C-2 security by adding one of several inexpensive,
out-of-the-box security applications. Both corporate and
independent developers can take advantage of new
APIs for creating advanced 3-D, compute intensive, speech and
telephony enabled applications. Developers can also change from
writing difficult to maintain and debug monolithic applications
to writing small, functionally rich, compatible OpenDoc
components."

This last comment is particularly interesting in light of the
recent discussions here about Java, the Internet, and some new form of
XyWrite as a Java applet. BTW, Annie's comment that IBM's
development of Java for Win3.1 is a nail in the coffin for OS/2
is the opposite of my interpretation. IBM is positioning OS/2 as
the heir to Win3.1 because, in addition to its powerful new
features, it continues to support Win3.1. MS has said, I believe,
that it will no longer support
Win3.1 since it expects everyone to go to Win95. By creating Java for
Win3.1 IBM is potentially attracting a large number of non-upgrading
3.1 users to OS/2. A smart move indeed if Win95 dies on the vine,
as appears to be happening. The OS choice of the future will be either
OS/2 or WinNT. I hope TTG is ready.

Cheers,
John Gordon





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J.L. Gordon
Department of Anthropology 
University of Western Australia
Nedlands, WA, 6907 Australia

internet: jgordon@xxxxxxxx tel: +61 9 380 2850 fax: +61 9
380 1062
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