Silly resistor values

seems

somewhat

No, they really couldn't. Remeber the 'B' part of their name. Their customer was the same customer that bought 3277s, which were built even more like a tank. There was no money in chasing the bottom feeders either. As it turned out, there was no money in PCs at all.

It takes a *lot* of ThinkPads to make $30B (or $100B).

Different game. Selling hardware and then servicing it is not the same as selling a service (complete with people), then supplying the hardware to make it happen. ...and even supplying someone *else's* hardware to make it happen.

OS/2 was simply another case of superior technology getting buried by marketing. In retrospect, I don't believe there was anything IBM could have done to salvage that mess. They were hog-tied by the DOJ. M$ was under no such restriction.

seems

somewhat

Well, I paid over $5k for my Tandon back then, sans monitor (which was anopther $2k or so). There were huge profit margins to be had back then, Dell built a whole successful company around that.

Got to think diversified here. We also didn't make all our profits with just one kind of ultrasound machine.

It shouldn't matter much whether they make the HW or not, other than they'd give up some of the HW profit margins. What matters to the customers is that they get a turn-key solution without having to worry about details. Whether they also rent the people or not.

What marketing? I think that was the problem, there wasn't much of it. Most small biz owners I knew back than had never heard of OS/2. All they knew was Microsoft. Marketeers and journalists also knew Apple.

That's interesting. How did the DOJ hinder their sales efforts? Did that also affect places like Europe?

OS/2 WAS utilized by IBM for YEARS after it was dropped as a consumer PC product.

Nearly every bank around the world used it all the way up until the banks started embracing Windows 2000.

And that's a fact, Jack.

They could have made money on PCs, had they contracted it out to TROC or Hong Kong or such, but that would have also guaranteed even more cloning, which was the big no-no back then.

Tandon made the first hard drives for the IBM XT series, and they saw the light and made themselves bigger.

IBM simply tried to apply a bigger business model to a business niche that required a different mindset that had not as yet been developed in the business world.

OS/2 died when Microsoft refused to give IBM, as was their agreement, the win32 API, so they could make OS/2 win32 compatible.

Without that compatibility, they had no viable product, except to their own niche business segment.

But that's a drop in the bucket compared to MS' sales numbers.

... and I bought my first business class PC from them ...

One crucial thing they failed to do: Talk to thy small-biz clients. Case in point are guys like me. When someone buys a small product from IBM that is obviously going to be used in a small-biz setting but then there aren't any other sales (such as PCs, OS licenses, more software) that would be an excellent opportunity to have a chat with this customer. To find out why that is so. But nobody every called. "Didn't know" does not count because back then nearly everything in the computer world required mailing in registration cards. So they had the names and phone numbers right there.

Thanks, I didn't know that.

Ok, but I and lots and lots of others weren't interested in Win32 or anything. We all used DOS programs because they were (and still are) much more reliable than anything Windows. I employed a "roached-on" task-switcher running in 5MB of RAM, allowing me to use 3-4 DOS programs at the same time. But that was a kludge and most others couldn't get that going. AFAIR they all wanted OS/2 as "the better DOS" so they could do task switching. It wasn't really available at reasonable conditions but most people didn't even know about it.

BeOS and emulators. OS/2 was a true timeslice task switcher though, so it could run a huge count of VDMs as well. The problem with OS/2 (and BeOS) is modern HW compatibility, since there is no current developmental upkeep.

What would be really cool would be to get the OS/2 or BeOS original compile code. Another good one would be DesqViewX as it was an Xserver.

All three would make nice front ends under a Linux kernel! :-) There's a product in there!

No. He told us that only by faith in Jesus can we be saved. The entire race of man, and the Earth was condemned when we killed Jesus Christ. That sin was not taken well by God.

No matter what your iniquitous works are or are not here on Earth, if the last words on your lips as you die are not "forgive me for my sins, Lord Jesus", you are not 'faithful' enough.

The only folks that will escape that requisite are the Jews.

No. It did not have to happen. It only had to happen because of the way the species of man is.

I am quite sure that other species in other worlds have different values instilled into their being than man does. Do not be so arrogant as to think that we are the only sentient species that exists or was ever created.

God decided it had to happen. Of course it is correct that the reason why he decided to send Jesus was that teh species of man has fallen into tons of sin.

So far I haven't heard of any outer space folks, they should have found Usenet by now or at least establish a web portal ;-)

business

seems

somewhat

Actually, the margins were pretty poor by IBM's standards. They had a

$30-$100B is a lot of diversification too. It was a lot of company to turn on a dime. It was ugly, but Gerstner pulled it off.

The point is that it was a dramatic change from selling hardware with service to selling a service that may have some hardware, somewhere.

Gates'.

There was a deep anti-IBM streak in the small computer journalism at the time. They snuggled right up to BillyG though. Apple and Jobs were sold as a fairy tale. ...still are.

Certainly it affected Europe. There were strict rules on IBM marketing and what the company could do. Remember, they'd just escaped (outlasted) the DOJ's antitrust suit and were still living under the '56 consent decree. Everything we did, even in engineering, was controlled by rules set down by lawyers after the run ins with the DOJ. Those restrictions were just lifted a few years ago (this decade).

Why did OS/2 need a Win32 API? Because it had already lost the war and was already dead.

No. Because it entered the market as a DOS compatible, and Windows compatible OS, dipshit. And because if it had not had agreements with MS to get that compatibility, it would never have done the OS development to begin with. So MS was culpable for their downfall.

They were not "already dead" had MS kept up their agreement.

Why was that so dramatic? IBM has emphasized the service part of its operation since at least the 60's, and was always good at that (they made stuff work).

That is a very sad state of affairs if a (back then) little outfit in the boonies was able to out-marketeer big blue. Somehow doesn't exude competence in their marketing department, maybe there should have been some higher level personnel changes.

Certainly not in the business world. I and other entrepreneurs and engineers back then didn't give a hoot where stuff was coming from. We never listened to sentiments and such but bought what works. After looking at the prices my order went with Tandon.

I lived in Europe and it sure looked like IBM was advertizing their PCs and software just like everyone else did. Except that their pricing was mostly sky high. So ...

OS/2 entered the market in 1987. The Win32 API didn't exist (never mind become popular) till Windows NT was released 6 years later.

... and by that time it was essentially over already. OS/2 was expensive, usually didn't come pre-installed like Windows 3 did and it had compatibility (drivers and such) issues with some non-IBM hardware. IMHO serious marketing blunders. I expect well compensated marketeers to see such things in advance.

Service of its products, yes. Not complete turn-key applications, though. They never *ran* customer's installations or out-sourced the work. It *is* a dramatic change to completely rework a company the size and scope of IBM.

By the early '90s M$ wasn't a little company.

The "business world" isn't where IBM lost OS/2. M$ won from the bottom up, not top down.

THere were *many* things IBM couldn't do. The rules on product announcements, being one. Cost structures being another. Gifting to educational institutions another. There were *thousands* of restrictions.

And at that time it had DOS compatibility, and the first windows API hooks were in there as well. IBM had agreements with MS to get full Win32 API compatibility. So did quarterdeck, and MS reneged on them as well, and that is why DesqViewX died early on as well.

The Win32s API is available in OS/2. I still use Warp 4.5 Convenience Pak 2.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs