After five years without a new release of OS/2, suddenly there are two. Convenience Pack (CP) was released by IBM as an upgrade to Warp V4, including many of the latest Warp Server for e-business components. Another upgrade to OS/2, based on the CP, comes from Serenity Systems as eCommStation (eCS). Serenity Systems has been licensed by IBM to resell OS/2 as a package, including optional Symetric MultiProcessing (SMP) desktop capabilities.
IBM's Convenience Package is aimed at large companies who use hundreds or thousands of copies in a distributed corporate environment. The CP from IBM's Software Choice is $249 for the media and first install, and $149 for each additional license. Serenity System's eCommStation (eCS) is aimed at a broader market, from single users to large companies. The eCS package is a $139 upgrade from Warp 4, or $279 as new, both from Indelible Blue [Now closed, ed].
IBM's last upgrade of OS/2 was from Warp V3 to Warp V4 in 1996. Since then, device drivers, Java and Netscape for OS/2 have been updated, but OS/2 V4 has only had fixpacks added. In addition to these two upgraded products - CP and eCS, which bundle a number of improvements, there are a number of free or low cost enhancements that are available to all owners of Warp V3 or V4. All in all, the capabilities of OS/2 have continued to evolve.
Until the middle of 2000 it seemed that, like an old soldier, OS/2 would fade away. But at WarpTech 2000, put on the the Phoenix OS/2 Users Society, IBM announced support for OS/2 through 2006 with enhancements coming in a Convenience Pack. Also at WarpTech 2000, I got first looks at Simplicity for Java - a powerful programming environment, and Wise Manager- for software and systems management. For the full story, see my report on Byte.com from last year - WarpTech 2000 -- Full of Surprises.
Recently I received a copy of Serenity Systems eCommStation, an enhanced Warp V4 with built in software management and a pair of powerful application suites. I will install and test eCS on my heavily used workstation, and will report next time on my experiences. The eCS site has news and download links for free and purchase software. It's well worth the visit.
All of this activity in OS/2 is certainly encouraging for those of us who have become used to its capabilities. The most important event however, is in the extended business infrastructure. IBM has licensed the ability to package OS/2 in various combinations for sale by another company - Serenity Systems. The person coordinating the eCS release is the director of new business, Bob St. John. This represents a sea change for IBM's OS/2 users.
While there have been no official statements, it is my opinion that Serenity Systems will become the core support for OS/2 in non-enterprise environments. Indeed, the package put together by Serenity Systems (see below) is a complete business desktop without any Microsoft entrails stuck to it. For managing more than a few desktops, they also have Wise Manager available. Wise Manager takes the software management in a single machine and extends it to large groups of machines on one or more networks, including support for several operating systems in addition to OS/2. See the WarpTech 2000 link above and the Serenity Systems link for more on Wise Manager.
The official introduction of eCS is scheduled for May 19, 2001. Serenity System's eCommStation release 1 includes:
IBM has a page for Free & Trial software for OS/2. In addition to the search items listed, there are twelve categories of additional free, demo and trial software available for OS/2 from IBM.
There are links to the Device Driver Catalog , the Software Choice catalog, and IBM Fixpaks. Fixpak 15 is the latest for Warp V4.
In the Device Driver area are the latest (release 4) video drivers from SciTech Suite of Drivers. SDD704.exe is the current free download, which I am using in four systems with good results. Software choice users have access to a later version. [Note: SDD704 can now be found on the OS2Supersite]
IBM has worked with the Mozilla site to provide an OS/2 version of Netscape 6.01. The version from IBM's software choice site has the Flash plugin. The free version is here. Scroll down page to OS/2 Web browser and download the IBM contributed version. This does not include the Flash plugin.
Netscape 6.01 Features (based on Mozilla):
From Germany, an updated CD Writer for OS/2: RSJ CD Writer for OS/2 Version 3.55.
Here is a brief outline of the Convenience Pack features. For Warp V4:
For Warp V4 Server for e-business - All the above, plus:
The convenience pack is available from IBM by subscription or Software Choice.
The most important element in future Internet access will be understanding content, not just format. Anyone who has done a search knows that the pearls you need are well hidden in the swine, which often outnumber the pearls 100 to 1. This is not just an optional 'nice to have' feature. With over ten million servers and Petabytes (A Petabyte is a Trillion Megabytes) of data on line, and with continuing exponential growth, the Internet has grown past the ability of any one site to index it.
The information is out there, but where? Information is the key here. We are not looking for data - we're drowning in data! What we need is some way to discern meaning from the mass of data that rides the electromagnetic waves. Fortunately, help is almost at hand.
The key element is all of this is a standard way to define content and semantics. This starts with XML, the eXtended Markup Language, a subset of SGML that is becoming the core of content identification. If you haven't looked at XML, it's time to start. And the logical place to start is XML.org.
Once you have sampled the XML concept, next on the menu is the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI). The DCMI defines some basic metadata elements for all content, with optional elements and extendable elements for special purposes. Metadata is data about data. It is a higher level, more general description of the specific data.
For instance, this column is written by Bill Nicholls. A metadata element would be Author, the specific data element would be the name of the author. The basic set of DCMI elements is at Basic DCMI. What DCMI does is define a standard way to specify what type of data each part of the content is. Once that is available, we can go to the next step.
One of the critical differences between the Internet and Libraries is that libraries are organized. Each book, magazine or paper gets a category assigned to it, such as the Dewey Decimal System or the Library of Congress Classification. Each item in the collection gets a unique identification such as the ISBN for books. All items are indexed in a in a real or virtual card file. This indexing, done by humans not computers, incorporates category and meaning to the index.
Internet search engines cannot automatically categorize, they can only index. Without categories or metadata, all words have equal value and no specific context or meaning. Thus search engines can only display hits based on finding specific words or phrases. While this does work to a limited degree, the huge size of the internet has reduced the value of this approach. My experience with searches varies, but the usual results are a frustrating checking of dozens of items to find just one near miss.
Digital Libraries (DL) are one answer to the explosion of data. A DL is a virtual library, with organized and indexed storage of digital data. The key difference from the rest of the Internet is the existence of metadata that categorizes the data elements. The value of a library is its organization as much as its content. A good place to start exploring is the Digital Library concept. I recommend the first two articles at that site: April 2001 issue.
A single digital library can provide good tools, but how does one work with multiple DLs? How can we insure some compatibility at the index level, which one might call the meta-metadata level. More than XML and DCMI are needed.
The answer is in another developing standard, the Open Archive Initiative (OAI). This proposed standard defines a way that indexes at a single library can be accessed through a standard API to enable creation of super indexes, or simply search for specific items. The OAI can be found Open Archive Initative.
This brief introduction to digital libraries is just to whet your appetite for a look into the future of DLs and the Internet. To repeat my earlier note, the core of all of these standards is XML, and thankfully, XML 1.0 is now supported in Mozilla release 0.9, and in the OS/2 Netscape 6.01 version from IBM, which is based on the Mozilla code.
The Mozilla browser, after a long and difficult development period, is now working well, if not perfectly. I am using both NS 4.61 for OS/2 and Mozilla 6.01 at the same time in my system and I am pleased with the faster performance of the Mozilla browser. It's time to make sure you have XML support in your browser.
Next time I'll report on my experiences with eCS and some of the applications. I'll also take a deeper look into XML and digital libraries, and their future impact on the web.
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