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os2wins.txt
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1993-06-08
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I saw the following on the Internet:
THE EVENT:
The event was the Texas Technology Fair and Computer Expo. It was
sponsored by HALPC (Houston Area League of PC Users). For the Fair they
shifted their meeting to Friday. HALPC organized the event and titled
it: "Microsoft's NT vs IBM's OS/2 - The Showdown - Which OS is best?".
The format was for Microsoft to have a 45 minute show followed by our 45
min show. Then there would be a Q&A.
THE TEAM:
Ron Kohl organized a band of TEAMers to work the show and they worked
hard. Before the show they made sure that all seats had a flyer on
the upcoming PSP Technical Interchange and a copy of the OS/2 100
reprint. They also brought in their own machines and set up a test
drive center which attracted a lot of attention both before and after
the show. More about their other work later.
OS/2 Professional sent Terry Kirby down to pass out magazines. They
shipped me 4,000 magazines (1,000 each of four issues) that we passed
out all day Friday and Saturday.
THE CROWD:
The room was a little small so there were a lot of folks standing
after ALL the seats were filled. HALPC attempted to have more
chairs brought in but the hotel wouldn't allow more than the 1,200
already there <*Very Big Grin*>. That's right, there were about
1,300 people at this event.
THE SHOW:
The show started with the introduction of the participants. Making the
introductions was Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle. This was
an excellent touch by John Behrman, VP Programs of HALPC. It made sure
that the Computer Technology writer for the paper was there to witness
the event. The speaker from Microsoft was Doug Davis. He has been with
Microsoft for three years and is an Architectural Engineer.
THE MICROSOFT NT "demo":
The Microsoft presentation was a thirty minute pitch followed by a seven
minute demo of NT. His second chart was a copy of our Nice Try ad. He
stated Microsoft's belief that NT is *the BEST* client/server
environment on the market today..... Well, the audience stirred enough
at that 'on the market today' remark that he went to his next chart
stating that NT was part of a family of Windows products (ie, it really
doesn't matter if this one is on the market yet cause the others are).
The demo was all the normal stuff you would show if you didn't have
anything else to demo.....the file manager, the animated cursor, etc.
The audience responded politely....
THE IBM DEMO
Then Mr. Barnes took the stage. He did his normal excellent demo
execising every opportunity to point out things that NT couldn't do.
David showed the Workplace Shell. He showed DOS compatibility. He
showed Windows compatibility. He showed cut, paste, and DDE. He has
a very impressive DOS flick file app called POPEYE which he used to
show off multitasking and DOS graphics. AND he talked a lot about
threads and showed how valuable they are to the average user.
He had some real good software motion video clips that he showed and
he played some music from the system while running several DOS apps.
It was at this point that things could have fallen apart if it weren't
for Davids knowledge of the system. The system crashed. He said:
"OH NO! David is not a happy camper", and went on to explain that he
was using some old device drivers that had caused the failure. While
he rebooted he talked about how DOS would just leave you with broken
disk files and showed the CHKDSK that fixes that in OS/2. He had enough
to say that he got over the reboot and back into the demo without
losing the attention of the audience. An interesting aside is that
the next day I overheard a guy arguing forcefully with another that
IBM planned the crash to demonstrate how good the OS is about
recovering.
All during the demo which lasted about 45 minutes Ron Kohl's team
would throw giveaways to the audience. Dave has this habit of saying
"Yeah, I know. Show me Dave, show me". The audience soon learned that
if they asked Dave to SHOW THEM the flow of goodies would start. They
really got into it.
THE QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION:
<Big Grin> All the interest was in OS/2. There were three questions
directly for NT and two of those were pointed questions from OS/2
advocates. There were MANY questions for OS/2.
THE AUDIENCE POLL:
<Huge Smile> The program chairman next did a poll of the audience.
His questions:
How many of you have 386 systems? Most of the 1,300 raised their hand.
How many of you plan to buy NT just as soon as it becomes available?
There were 5 hands raised. Just 5. Out of 1,300 people, only 5.
How many of you plan to buy OS/2 2.1 as soon as possible? IT LOOKED TO
ME LIKE HALF THE AUDIENCE RAISED THEIR HAND. But let me just say that
at least 400 people voted on this one.
The evening was a stunning victory for OS/2. There was talk and shock
all over the place the next day about how badly IBM had beaten Microsoft.
David Barnes was surrounded by eager questioners for over an hour.