[vox] OS/2 and Linux, why has IBM changed?

[Kevin Hooke]

Quoting Ken Herron <kherron@newsguy.com>
>During the MS antitrust trial, some information about these negotiations
came out. It seems OS/2 was the big >sticking point. IBM wanted to sell PCs
preloaded with OS/2, but MS wasn't having any of that. MS absolutely
>refused to let IBM sell PCs with Win95 unless IBM agreed not to sell PCs
with OS/2. Given the difference in >market demand, IBM didn't have much of a
choice

Wow I didn't know that - that would explain a lot.

Quoting Peter Jay Salzman <p@dirac.org>
>what exactly was IBM's killer product in the mid 90's?   nobody used
>typewriters.  nobody really used OS/2.
Actually Pete, as someone else just mentioned, OS/2 was widely used by large
corporations in Europe during the early 90's. Royal Sun Alliance (an
insurance company) used OS/2 on the desktop and also for backend servers
almost exclusively until only a few years ago, and I believe Lloyds Bank
were another big user on the desktops in their branch offices. I also heard
that in the early 90s some of the London area Air Traffic Control was also
run on OS/2. I'm sure there are/were many others as well..

Kevin