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

[Wendell Cochran atrypa@xxxxxxxx]

Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 18:09:42 -0800
From: "J. R. Fox" 

Wendell:
>> But who to approach in behalf of XyWrite I can't tell you. It does seem
>> that someone in Armonk might be receptive to this line: `Back in '94 IBM
>> thought XyWrite a great program. Sure, you bailed out, but only because
>> upper management shut down the entire Desktop Software group.
>>
>> `Now that IBM's again interested in desktop software . . . .'

Jordan:
>An appealing notion, but we all remember IBM as the elephant that rolled
>over in its sleep and crushed Signature. Their record with OS/2 has been
>pretty spotty at best. (Some would say "Cut & Run," but that's not entirely
>fair.) They have been a huge conglomeration of different divisions pulling
>haphazardly in various -- sometimes contrary -- directions. There is reason
>to question the quality of their long-term (which in computing isn't all
>that long) or strategic thinking.


If I'm not the champion Signature-grudge holder here, I must be close.

But the sabotage came in '94 & '95; then came Louis Gerstner, & now Sam
Palmisano, & a current commitment to Linux & open source that can hardly
be reversed. In Signature time it was only the Software Group: now it's
the whole company.

I think back to 1981, when Byrd Press of Richmond, Va., my typesetter
& printer, suggested that I convert my magazine operation to Atex &
the ur-XyWrite. Byrd predicted that the change would cancel my type
bill.
(And so it proved: a pair of Atex machines paid for themselves within 8
or 9 months.) `You're killing your own typesetting business,' I said.
Why?'  A: `It's going to happen anyhow. We want to get it over with, &
go ahead with the new ways.'

That's what IBM is doing. Already it's offering mainframe users a
choice of AIX -- or Linux. That's even though AIX (IBM's proprietary
UNIX)
is a major cash cow.


Now suppose I've read all the tea leaves exactly wrong. If not IBM for
XyWrite, who?