Slashdot Mirror
OS/2 Going, Going... Gone
An anonymous submitter writes "IBM has posted a Software Withdrawal notice on their web site announcing that the OS/2 operating system, in all its forms, will cease to be available for purchase from IBM as of March 12, 2003. For users who have purchased the two year OS/2 Software Choice subscriptions, service will continue until December 31, 2004." We posted a pretty good story about the history of OS/2 earlier this year.
Or rather, OS/2 is dead.
Rest in peace.
Not dead, OS/2 lives on in Windows NT/2K/XP/.NET
oh, wait, you said "OS/2" not "PS2"... for a second there I thought I cared...
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
What am I going to do with all my OS/2 specific programs I have.....wait, that's right. I don't have any.
Nevermind
WTF? Over?
Fare the well, OS/2. We hardly knew ye.
_______
2B1ASK1
...It's half an Operating System!
Cool, now the way is paved for OS/3! I'm holding my breath!
So, the ATM actually crashed, but you felt *safer* once you saw that it was running OS/2? I guess perception is more important than reality after all.
IBM may have been evil, but at least it's cool. Let's recap shall we...
:)
IBM's innovations : relational databases and SQL, RISC technology, scanning tunnelling microscopes, speech recognition, hard disk drives
Microsoft's innovations : talking paper clip, BSOD, the awesome FAT filesytem, MSN and passport
I like the cool evil better
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
Give it up with the scripted spiel, dude! This is the third time I've seen this, and a glance at your posting history indicates you've posted the same spiel several more times. And that is in the space of two days! I'm sure you mean well, but regurgitating the same comment over and over ain't going to make you Mr Popular...
-MT.
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered OS/2 community when CmdrTaco confirmed that OS/2 market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming close on the heels of a recent Slashdot survey which plainly states that OS/2 has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. OS/2 is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict OS/2's future. The hand writing is on the wall: OS/2 faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for OS/2 because OS/2 is dead. Things are looking very bad for OS/2. As many of us are already aware, OS/2 continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
etc.etc.etc. You get the idea :o)
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
> which made me feel much safer
That's what you felt **as you were watching it reboot**???
Taco Bell in Vincennes, Indiana uses Microsoft Windows 98 for an outside order displayer. For at least 3 years now, it has constantly went through a reboot cycle thanks to Windows crashing almost immediately after the logo is displayed. I find this hilarious.
IBM is fanatical about things like that. Remember, they're not a computer company, they make business machines. If they could, everything from the computers down to the manuals would be made of metal and be identified by nothing more than a five digit number.
Well, the NatWest ATM on Piccadilly that ate my card a few weeks back was running Win2K, as I found out when it crashed and rebooted...
Plus IBM has all those cool company songs.
...because you can still get PC-DOS.
This time-tested and useful operating system is now Y2K compliant and it supports the euro symbol.
That's the IBM experience - value and support.
And the best part? It's only a $50 download.