Monday, July 18, 2005

IBM OS/2 is now officially dead

Remember IBM's OS/2 operating system? The OS that was supposed to be better than Microsoft's DOS and Windows? I remember using OS/2 when I was an IBM intern and installing OS/2 back in the mid 1990's. OS/2 was technically superior to Microsoft Windows at the time, in fact OS/2 was created as a joint effort between Microsoft and IBM, and Microsoft supported OS/2. Then Windows went off, and left IBM in the dust. IBM didn't really do much to continue OS/2. Now, OS/2 has been laid to rest.

OS/2 was a great operating system in its time, it didn't crash like Microsoft Windows did. It was great as a server OS with its multitasking and being able to run Windows programs in an emulated Windows environment on top of OS/2. As history has repeated itself, Microsoft didn't create a technically superior software (witness IE vs. Netscape and Mozilla, Windows Media vs. Real player, etc.), it's just that Microsoft with its marketing muscle has been able to beat its rival, a once dominant player. Anyways, long live OS/2.

OS/2: 1987-2005
RIP

Technorati tags: OS/2, IBM

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

News of OS/2's death has been greatly exaggerated...

http://www.ecomstation.org/