Forked tongues at Redmond

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Date 14 Sep 1989 9:49 est Via: vax To: fking, ebelove, bjohnston, cyoung Subject: (Forwarded) Notes from MS visit re OS/2, Windows, Excel.

See the discussion of Windows vs. OS/2, and the point about Excel working OK on a 2Meg OS/2 machine. I don't understand this either, since the Windows guys are selling IBM and Compaq on the story that the equivalence between Windows and OS/2 is that Windows requires somewhere between 1 and 2 meg, and OS/2 requires 4 to run a reasonable app. Forked tongues???

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via: mailbox vax, dreed/nocommand on VAX at Lotus (LDC) ** Message Received OK

From: LDBVAX::RSTURTEVANT "Reed Sturtevant" x4752" Date: 13-Sep-1989 14:22:20 To: "ml:chagallmgrs To: LDBVAX:: jbooth To: LDBVAX:: emcnierney To: LDBVAX:: dreed To: LDBVAX:: jmorris Subject: Nothe from MS visit re. OS/2 fonts, etc.

(Jeff, please correct me where I'm wrong - Reed)


 * Lotus Confidential ****

Attending from Microsoft: Peter Neuberg, Cameron Myrhvold. (I believe Peter has overall responsibility for OS/2 marketing, and some development - Reed) From: Lotus: RSTURTEVANT, MFAHEY, FGERMANO, MROTH, ARNYEPSTEIN, JIMWILSON, JMORRIS

..

Excel performance: benchmarks on a system with only 2MB RAM showed PM Excel running under OS/2 1.2 w/o Compatibility Box to *match* speed of Windows Excel under Windows 3.0. (Lotus: "we find that hard to believe" Neuberg: "we did too, IBM ran same benchmarks and confirmed results")

Windows 3.0 vs. OS/2 discussions, paraphrased (remember we were talking to OS/2 folks):

Lotus: why are you letting your own company bury OS/2, with all this Windows 3.0 hype, before it has a chance to grow. ?

MS: it's a PR problem (i.e. Bill Gates - Reed), we're trying to fix it. Internally Microsoft is more committed to OS/2 than to Windows, as marketing staff & budget is larger for OS/2 and the development staff is 5 times larger for OS/2. Currently drafting a positioning statement to explain the differences.

Lotus: why will anyone buy OS/2 instead of Windows ?

MS: Products have different design points: Windows 3.0 designed for 2MB system w. Windows, 2 "professional" apps (e.g. Pagemaker & Excel) whereas OS/2 is designed for 4 MB system w. OS, LAN code, 3 apps.

OS/2 will be the long term functionality leader (e.g., fonts)

OS/2 will support more applications (?!) and the applications will be more full-featured.

...

Full Exhibit
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/px04182.pdf