Linux gets all the press, Microsoft gets all the hate mail, OS/2 gets ignored. But somehow, OS/2 users keep on running this relatively unknown and little respected system. Why? "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan." The failure of OS/2 to capture large market share has many causes, but here are the main ones:
Despite those major and many minor obstacles, OS/2 went on to win the hearts of about five million users in the early 90's. Many were employees of large corporations who standardized on OS/2. But just as many were won over by one simple fact: Like a Maytag, it just keeps on running.
Unlike Windows 3.1 and 95, the user is always surprised when OS/2 freezes because it is a very rare event for OS/2. Reinstalls are almost never needed even when beta software manages to freeze the machine. From OS/2 2.1 on, Windows 3.1 programs ran better inside WinOS2 with fewer hangs than native Windows 3.1. DOS apps ran in a window alongside OS/2 and Windows 3.1 apps, and all were multi-tasked preemptively without problems.
With all those benefits, how was OS/2 bettered by a late and technically inferior OS from Microsoft? The basic answer is "See the above list". My purpose here is not to detail what happened as that would fill columns. What I want to write about is where OS/2 is today, answers to 2a and 2b, and why many people strongly prefer OS/2 to Windows 95, 98 or NT.
As I write this, OS/2 exists in three versions: 2.1, 3.0 and 4.0. Versions 3 and 4, known as collectively as WARP, are still supported by IBM with enhancements, fixpaks, new and updated peripheral driver code. You can see that when you visit IBM's OS/2 driver site: IBM's OS/2 supports almost every card and peripheral type, from CD-Recordable to WAN - X.25 adapters, even eleven USB products. This includes a respectable 338 disk and SCSI adapters, a huge list of 805 display adapters and an astonishing 1318 printers and plotters.
Fixpaks available for all countries for WARP 3 & 4 are available from the page: 'Fixes, Drivers, Files and News' The update process is fully automated and can be run under Netscape for OS/2 from 2.02 to the latest 4.61, or IBM's own Web Explorer 1.1. They can also be downloaded and applied manually from hard or floppy disk. The READMEs are informative and helpful, and best of all, OS/2 fixpaks can be backed out if there is a problem.
Let's take on issue 2a, "OS/2 is hard to install". In the early 2.0 beta days, the OS/2 install was not a thing of beauty. It took me three tries with 30+ diskettes each time to get a properly configured install of the beta, but only the first time. However, after loading two betas and the release of 2.0 from floppies, when IBM announced that 2.1 was available on CD, I ran to my local dealer and purchased a single speed SCSI CD reader and 8 bit controller for a measly $315.00 It was worth every penny!
The 2.0 and 2.1 installs could be a trial if you had never done one before, or occasionally even if you had. By WARP 3, the install was two floppies and a CD which required no fiddling unless you had, as I did, unusual or cheap peripheral cards. Even in that case, all it took was adding the right driver to the second disk and adding a line for that driver in the floppy config.sys. Then the boot disk simply detected your card, loaded the driver and copied the install to the hard disk, starting the install automatically. Quite simple. Note that in no case do you have to install DOS and a CD driver first, like MS requires for Windows 95, 98 and NT.
That turns out to be why even today the 'hard to install' mantra remains. Most journalists installed OS/2 only once, condemned it for a hard install and went back to rewriting MS press releases as news. The point that a lot of them missed was that you only needed to install OS/2 once, then you just run and run and run. A few journalists reported this accurately but were largely outshouted by the less thorough majority.
Even in the beginning this was untrue. OS/2 2.1 shipped with a full set of Windows 3.1 standard software, and ran almost every piece of 3.1 software written. When Windows 95 finally arrived, not surprisingly it was not compatible with OS/2, and not by accident. Microsoft really feared OS/2 back then as they knew it was technically better than W95. Microsoft had even found their own developers using OS/2 rather than MS tools. After that fact was publicized, OS/2 at Microsoft lasted exactly as long as it took Bill Gates to write a memo.
Native OS/2 software is available, but from smaller vendors with budgets to match. The user had to be willing to make a small effort to find the software while being bombarded by disinformation from Microsoft. It was not an easy time for OS/2 vendors mostly ignored by the press, but they persisted and delivered functional and reliable software. Most of the OS/2 software has been available since 1992 from Indelible Blue Their current catalog runs to 72 pages and is online as well. [IB has unfortunately shut down]
Fast forward to 1998. Windows 95 & 98 own the desktop market, 80% of the users expect to reboot their systems daily or more frequently, HP and other peripheral vendors go to a 'Microsoft Only' philosophy for their new products. Now using or talking about OS/2 gets you only strange looks and derision. Still, a small but vociferous group of OS/2 supporters has begun to take the future of OS/2 into their own hands and a very few far sighted vendors are including OS/2 versions of their software.
IBM, possibly realizing they had blown it with OS/2, rallies to JAVA as their battle cry in an effort to derail the Microsoft juggernaut. Though their Java performance is top drawer and runs well in OS/2, the fact is poorly reported. Nothing new there. Climbing on the MS bandwagon, the software division offers a good small business software package for NT, but pointedly omits supporting OS/2, a different division. The hardware group won't preinstall OS/2, either desktop or server. IBM continues to provide good hardware and software except in the desktop arena, where they play politics with the future of OS/2. Only the OS/2 server version gets resources for further development.
In 1998, the Star Division of a German firm released Star Office 4.0 for 32 bit Windows, Solaris, Mac, Linux and OS/2. It is now free for personal use via download, or $40 with CD and printed manual. In 1999, Star Office was upgraded to 5.1, compatible with Office 97. Commercial use is an inexpensive $499 for five users, any combination of versions. I've begun using it on OS/2 and Linux with success. It will load and run in a 32 MB OS/2 system. A 48 MB memory is good and 64 MB is plenty. Update: Sun bought StarOffice and has updated some of the versions. Check it out at StarOffice
A Lotus Office Suite is also available from the Lotus division of IBM. A JAVA office suite is available from Applix. .
Despite IBM's internal politics and corporate only support, the OS/2 users are taking control of its future. Web sites supporting Warp have long been an active part of the internet, but now user groups and developers have organized major shows. WarpStock '98 follows the '97 event and OS/2 users and developers rallied to show the public why they care.
WarpStock 99 in Atlanta scheduled for this October 16-17,continues the yearly show and Warp Expo West in southern California runs September 18. Had the internet been this pervasive in 1992, OS/2 could have built its own support base in the three years before MS shipped Windows 95.
OS/2 with native applications from a variety of vendors is easily capable of running everything you need for a small business, or as the desktop part of a large one. A lot of it is available as a package from Star Division, able to exchange documents with Office 97 users and far less vulnerable to email viruses. Netscape is being regularly upgraded by IBM - 4.61 is in final beta as I write, and I am actively running it in the background without worrying about a crash. Java support is also very good and IBM is providing current version 5 of Lotus/Domino as well as Apache server and Websphere for OS/2.
IBM may be finally realizing that an orphan OS which refuses to die and gets grass root user support despite Microsoft's 90% share of the desktop might possibly have some value. Even now as IBM rushes to embrace Linux, OS/2 continues to get some support. It's possible that the major problem for IBM is, and has always been, how to make a profit selling an OS one unit at a time and supporting end users. If they figure that out, anything is possible.