The official death of OS/2 has arrived

from WinCustomize Forums

The lingering death of OS/2 has come to an end.  9 years after the last major version of OS/2, IBM has officially announced what most observers (outside Usenet's comp.os.os2.advocacy) have known for years, OS/2 is dead.  IBM is directing existing customers to the Linux OS.

"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."

According to Eisenstadt, OS/2 has fewer than 80 customers that hold more than 10 licenses.

Stardock, from 1994 to 1998 was one of the leading OS/2 software developers.  Stardock's history on OS/2 can be found here.

4,310 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sad but true. I thought it was kind of funny recently when I discovered a thread on a Usenet OS/2 news group, in which one last diehard cursed eCS as a bastard OS with phony support and vehemently defended IBM as the only company that could be relied on to continue to truly support OS/2 into the future.

Remember those days when we thought almost anything IBM did was good, because we loved OS/2?
Personally, I always thought it stupid that Lou Gerstner was voted top OS/2 advocate by certain OS/2 magazines and user polls after Warp 3 came out. I always saw him as the beginning of the end.

Brad, your chronicling of the history of OS/2 and Stardock has always meant a lot to me as another OS/2-Windows user. Thanks for taking the time to cover this stuff over the years. Together with books that discuss the IBM-Microsoft OS/2 era, such as Barbarians at the Gates and Hard Drive (those are the only two I can remember right now), maybe we'll get the whole picture someday.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Brad, Sorry this happened as I know how close & hard your worked on OS/2.....your ability to "OBJECTIVELY" review & state you opinions about all the OS' out there have really been wonderful. Thx so much!
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Welp, all that's left is to make OS/2 open-source. But that's up to IBM at this point. If they do make the code public, then I guess OS/2 would then stand for Open Source/2. Welp, I only had a small chance to try out OS/2 back in the old days. Unfortunately, it didn't keep me in long enough for me to continue using it.
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Farewell Old Partner ......