Many point of sale solutions use OS/2 also. Many mobil stations use OS/2 as their POS operating system. Pound for pound it's a very powerful, balls to the wall fast(it was fast on a Pentium 60, imangine it running on a P4!), has excellent networking and WAN/LAN, etc.. links and has a very rich feature set. But it is old and fairly stagnant. I suspect it's probably better as an semi-embedded OS than windows, but most people these days have no clue about os/2, so they don't use it.
Banks still use OS/2 in lots of their infrastructure because it's fast and rock solid stable. It's well supported, in fact several very large banks still use os/2 as the backbone infrastructure for their ATM networks.
I wish IBM would port OS/2 to either Xen or build a compatibility layer to run on top of linux. Then os/2 customers could gradually move to Linux without having to recode their programs.
I use Os/2 2.11 desktops in 1992-1995 exclusively to run my IT department with Novell servers for filesharing. It was so FAR ahead of windows, it took M$ until 1997 to catch up with os/2 feature-wise and until 1999 to catch up stability-wise.
M$ only coded a small portion of OS/2, and they still retain rights to the core lanman networking components and parts of various subsystems. M$ consistently torpedoed IBMs' attempts to broaden interest or even opensource components because of the original ill fated deal. Too bad, Windows could have had a serious competitor. Instead thanks to intrigue, infighting and mishandling, OS/2 has been relegated to the dustbin. Sigh. Thanks Bill.
X11 is much smoother.. because it's a major network hog.. very chatty. VNC isn't great, but it's a decent hack. Try runnin X11 over DSL... ick. VNC over SSH is more usable.
Somebody needs to create a decent ICA knockoff that sends graphic device primitives without being so fat.
A small proviso.. file and print sharing through terminal services isn't actually tunneled or secured. It just simplifies the process of network mapping drives and printers via LAN SMB protocol. If you run term services through a firewall you'll only be able to copy stuff through the clipboard.
Citrix does allow you to run file and print through firewalls because it tunnels them through their ICA protocol.
RDP is just video with sound grafted on. They have no interest in making it a full fledged client.
Wrong!! Citrix Metaframe does not run on RDP. Citrix still uses their superfast and lean ICA protocol. Here's the real scoop (BTW, I was a WinFrame 2.0 beta tester)
Once there was OS/2... a company named citrix came along an created a multi-user version with a remote protocol much faster and leaner than X... and it was good... ran great over 9600 baud modems.
Then Windows came out and destroyed OS/2. Citrix licensed the entire Windows 3.51 code base and overhauled the kernel with new multi-user windows feature, thereafter called multi-win. They mated multi-win to their ICA protocol for presentation. You purchased "Winframe" from them, it was their build and you had to get service packs etc.. from them.. but it was rock solid, super fast and worked. You paid for the server, then a per concurrent user license fee. So you only paid for the max number of concurrent users.
Then the thin-client rage hit, spurred largely by the success of Citrix. Citrix had secured the source code to Windows NT 4.0, ported multiwin and their ICA hooks to it, christened it Winframe 2.0 and had it ready to go when Microsoft pulled the plug. Microsoft made a big splash with their "Hydra" project that they were going to come out with their own citrix killer. In reality it was a small team of program managers gathering requirements. the whole thing was created to steal multi-win and ICA before the thin-client rage destroyed them(as was the thinking back then)
So the 8,000 lb gorilla at the last moment, Citrix 2.0 was DONE for months, refused to agree to the licensing terms for NT4.0 effectively derailing Citrix. Citrix was smart though.. they didn't blink, instead they went into overdrive negotiation mode and eventually hammered out an agreement where they licensed multi-win to Microsoft for a small amount of cash, kept ICA to themselves and got Microsoft to sign a 3 year no compete for non-windows platforms. The multiwin technology was then baked into Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server (and if you actually have a copy around and view the details on the core kernel DLLs, they still say citrix BTW) and they took their netmeeting protocol h.323 and created RDP. RDP clients were only available for windows as per the citrix agreement. Citrix then built Metaframe as an add-on to the multi-win kernel extensions and brought their superior management tools and protocols to the platform.
The killer is that microsoft then demanded a per seat license of NT 4.0 Professional for each user, whether they were running Citrix or not. In the end, anyone deploying thin-clients uses Citrix so Microsoft succeeded in essentially foisting a huge tax on the thin-client market thwarting any inroads in might have had as a major desktop replacement. You have to buy Windows, pay Citrix, pay for seats (or TCALS, slightly less expensive per seats licenses if you arent running XP now) and ICA licenses which are still connection based. This relegated Citrix to a very important, but niche player which made them happy, and protected Microsoft's desktop monopoly.
Citrix has gone on to extend their technology with clustering and other very powerful tools, including securing the protocol very nicely. RDP has been better optimized and runs fairly well, although ICA still runs circles around it. Microsoft then added a remote admin mode to W2k, XP and W2k3 using the now venerable multi-win extensions that are now part of the core kernel code.
And now, as Paul Harvey says, you know the rest of the story.
If you don't lose your job, you certainly deserve to because you obviously don't understand the basic fundamentals of TCP/IP!
I have been pointing out the inherent iceberg P2P technology has been heading toward for some time with the proliferation of NATs.
FYI, NAT = Network Address Translation... you've probably been wondering what it means for some time now!
Don't be such an asshole!
Novell has two money making ventures currently, their caching solution, which actually is selling very well, and NDS. Netware is not gaining marketshare, although it does continue to limp along. I think somebody will eventually buy them to get NDS.. perhaps IBM... it's been long rumored they might buy them up at a firesale price. It would make sense and give them a hedge against active directory.
There are lots of cool things you could do with the netware filesystem and NDS. How about a peer to peer file sharing system for linux whereby different servers could mount and access remote filesystems easily, through firewalls with integrated NDS authentication. Just a thought.
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Many point of sale solutions use OS/2 also. Many mobil stations use OS/2 as their POS operating system. Pound for pound it's a very powerful, balls to the wall fast(it was fast on a Pentium 60, imangine it running on a P4!), has excellent networking and WAN/LAN, etc.. links and has a very rich feature set. But it is old and fairly stagnant. I suspect it's probably better as an semi-embedded OS than windows, but most people these days have no clue about os/2, so they don't use it.
Banks still use OS/2 in lots of their infrastructure because it's fast and rock solid stable. It's well supported, in fact several very large banks still use os/2 as the backbone infrastructure for their ATM networks.
I wish IBM would port OS/2 to either Xen or build a compatibility layer to run on top of linux. Then os/2 customers could gradually move to Linux without having to recode their programs.
I use Os/2 2.11 desktops in 1992-1995 exclusively to run my IT department with Novell servers for filesharing. It was so FAR ahead of windows, it took M$ until 1997 to catch up with os/2 feature-wise and until 1999 to catch up stability-wise.
M$ only coded a small portion of OS/2, and they still retain rights to the core lanman networking components and parts of various subsystems. M$ consistently torpedoed IBMs' attempts to broaden interest or even opensource components because of the original ill fated deal. Too bad, Windows could have had a serious competitor. Instead thanks to intrigue, infighting and mishandling, OS/2 has been relegated to the dustbin. Sigh. Thanks Bill.
X11 is much smoother.. because it's a major network hog.. very chatty. VNC isn't great, but it's a decent hack. Try runnin X11 over DSL... ick. VNC over SSH is more usable.
Somebody needs to create a decent ICA knockoff that sends graphic device primitives without being so fat.
A small proviso.. file and print sharing through terminal services isn't actually tunneled or secured. It just simplifies the process of network mapping drives and printers via LAN SMB protocol. If you run term services through a firewall you'll only be able to copy stuff through the clipboard.
Citrix does allow you to run file and print through firewalls because it tunnels them through their ICA protocol.
RDP is just video with sound grafted on. They have no interest in making it a full fledged client.
Wrong!! Citrix Metaframe does not run on RDP. Citrix still uses their superfast and lean ICA protocol. Here's the real scoop (BTW, I was a WinFrame 2.0 beta tester)
Once there was OS/2... a company named citrix came along an created a multi-user version with a remote protocol much faster and leaner than X... and it was good... ran great over 9600 baud modems.
Then Windows came out and destroyed OS/2. Citrix licensed the entire Windows 3.51 code base and overhauled the kernel with new multi-user windows feature, thereafter called multi-win. They mated multi-win to their ICA protocol for presentation. You purchased "Winframe" from them, it was their build and you had to get service packs etc.. from them.. but it was rock solid, super fast and worked. You paid for the server, then a per concurrent user license fee. So you only paid for the max number of concurrent users.
Then the thin-client rage hit, spurred largely by the success of Citrix. Citrix had secured the source code to Windows NT 4.0, ported multiwin and their ICA hooks to it, christened it Winframe 2.0 and had it ready to go when Microsoft pulled the plug. Microsoft made a big splash with their "Hydra" project that they were going to come out with their own citrix killer. In reality it was a small team of program managers gathering requirements. the whole thing was created to steal multi-win and ICA before the thin-client rage destroyed them(as was the thinking back then)
So the 8,000 lb gorilla at the last moment, Citrix 2.0 was DONE for months, refused to agree to the licensing terms for NT4.0 effectively derailing Citrix. Citrix was smart though.. they didn't blink, instead they went into overdrive negotiation mode and eventually hammered out an agreement where they licensed multi-win to Microsoft for a small amount of cash, kept ICA to themselves and got Microsoft to sign a 3 year no compete for non-windows platforms. The multiwin technology was then baked into Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server (and if you actually have a copy around and view the details on the core kernel DLLs, they still say citrix BTW) and they took their netmeeting protocol h.323 and created RDP. RDP clients were only available for windows as per the citrix agreement. Citrix then built Metaframe as an add-on to the multi-win kernel extensions and brought their superior management tools and protocols to the platform.
The killer is that microsoft then demanded a per seat license of NT 4.0 Professional for each user, whether they were running Citrix or not. In the end, anyone deploying thin-clients uses Citrix so Microsoft succeeded in essentially foisting a huge tax on the thin-client market thwarting any inroads in might have had as a major desktop replacement. You have to buy Windows, pay Citrix, pay for seats (or TCALS, slightly less expensive per seats licenses if you arent running XP now) and ICA licenses which are still connection based. This relegated Citrix to a very important, but niche player which made them happy, and protected Microsoft's desktop monopoly.
Citrix has gone on to extend their technology with clustering and other very powerful tools, including securing the protocol very nicely. RDP has been better optimized and runs fairly well, although ICA still runs circles around it. Microsoft then added a remote admin mode to W2k, XP and W2k3 using the now venerable multi-win extensions that are now part of the core kernel code.
And now, as Paul Harvey says, you know the rest of the story.
If you don't lose your job, you certainly deserve to because you obviously don't understand the basic fundamentals of TCP/IP! I have been pointing out the inherent iceberg P2P technology has been heading toward for some time with the proliferation of NATs. FYI, NAT = Network Address Translation... you've probably been wondering what it means for some time now! Don't be such an asshole!
Novell has two money making ventures currently, their caching solution, which actually is selling very well, and NDS. Netware is not gaining marketshare, although it does continue to limp along. I think somebody will eventually buy them to get NDS.. perhaps IBM... it's been long rumored they might buy them up at a firesale price. It would make sense and give them a hedge against active directory. There are lots of cool things you could do with the netware filesystem and NDS. How about a peer to peer file sharing system for linux whereby different servers could mount and access remote filesystems easily, through firewalls with integrated NDS authentication. Just a thought.