IBM, which made the announcement this week, said it will discontinue OS/2 products...

VIPER_1069

VIPER_1069

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sourced ZDNET ..

IBM will stop selling the OS/2 operating system at year's end, marking an end of an era for Big Blue.

IBM, which made the announcement this week, said it will discontinue OS/2 products by Dec. 23 and withdraw standard support for OS/2-related products as of Dec. 31, 2006.

Support for OS/2 will only be available under a service contract after 2006.

"We're making official what has been going on for quite some time," said Steve Eisenstadt, an IBM spokesman. "We haven't released a new version of OS/2 in nine years."

Big Blue is directing its OS/2 customers to switch to the Linux OS.

OS/2, which debuted in April 1987, struggled to gain the wide acceptance that Microsoft's Windows enjoyed. While OS/2 may have been considered technically superior to Microsoft's early versions of Windows, the operating system failed to prosper due to a lack of applications written for it.

Concerns about the future of OS/2 arose at least three years ago.

OS/2, which was the first Intel-based 32-bit multitasking operating system aimed at the PC market, currently has fewer than 80 customers that hold more than 10 licenses, Eisenstadt said.
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LTR12101B

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It had a window of opportunity (excuse pun!) that they failed to capitalize on - against the LATE emergence of Windows 95.

The Microsoft monopoly makes the spread of viruses far easier than in a more varied environment.

I wonder how much life there is left in Smartsuite, The IBM/Lotus Office package - at one time, it was popular in OEM bundles, as it was presumably a lot cheaper than MS Office.

The Comparable components:
1. MS-Word : Lotus/IBM Wordpro
2. MS-Excel : Lotus 123/windows
3. MS-Access : Lotus Approach
4. MS-Powerpoint : Freelance graphics

I'm a devotee of the Lotus camp myself - any MS product that isn't free or part of windows, I'm not interested - they have too big a slice of the pie already.
 
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