Re-code MS applications for OS/2

Date: 1989

Snippet
Date: 21 Dec 1989 9:26 est Via: vax To: iwold; coconner, cyoung, emcnierney, bbriggh, bfrankston Subject: (Forwarded) Microsoft Briefing

FYI. I do not yet have the copies of slides referred to.

Forwarded message

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

From: LDBVAX::DGILMOUR Date: 19-DEC-1989 10:05:50 To: @m1:spg_directs To: LOBVAX::mfahey Subject: Microsoft Briefing

Marty Fahey and I attended the Microsoft Systems review in Redmond on Decembeer 15. It was an all-day session of 35mm slide presentations and product demos. There were approximately 90 people in the room, 40 of whom were from Microsoft.

About 25 ISVs were representated, including Aldus, Autodesk, Oracle, wordperfect, AShton Tate, Microrim, Informix, and a number of smaller companies who generally seemed to send their chief technical officer.

Copies of the slides were distributed and will be copied to this distribution list. They contain significant technical detail about the future directions of OS/2 and Windows. What follows are additional facts raised in the discussion bit not necessarily reflected in the slides.

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OS/2


 * Ballmer repeated the "Official" positioning of OS/2 vs. Windows, based on machine memory size. But during the course of the day it became clear that Microsofot believes that OS/2 will appleal primarily to "corporations making planned purchases" and for "new hardware", and Windows will be the "transition to GUI" for many end users running existing hardware.


 * However, a demo of OS/2 2.0 made OS/2 look quite ipressive from th end user's point of view -- really for the first time. The demo included running:

- 1-2--3 2.01 with expanded memory

- DOS Wordperfect

- PM Excel

- Microsoft Word (CUI) with Borland Sidekick

- Microsoft Windows in a window, with the calender application running inside that.

- Flight Simulator

Cut-and-paste was demonstrated from 1-2-3 to Wordperfect and then to Excel.


 * OS/2 2.0 has a "Porthole" facility which will allow running of Windows 3.0 applications with 100% compatibility ..

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Microsoft's Applications

Microsoft's own view is that the world will divide into Windows applications and pure 32 bit OS/2 applications. UNIX will never be a viable platform for volume packaged software because of a lack of a binary standard distributed as a packaged product. Microsoft will use the porthole facility to get its applications to PM, except for Excel, which has been ported natively. It will then re-code all its applications for the 32 bit version of OS/2.

Full Exhibit
http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/px05082.pdf