Well here we are in 1998: the euphoria of Warpstock has long since dissipated, PSP has been absorbed into another division of IBM, and we as OS/2 users still haven't a clue as to where OS/2 is going. I've been scanning various news sources lately looking for any tidbit of news or rumors regarding OS/2 product plans, including The Unofficial Warp 5 FAQ from Martin Alfredsson in Sweden, IBM's OS/2 Warp 4 page, IBM OS/2 Warp FM, the WarpCast News Service, and of course the OS/2 News & Announcements section in the newsgroups.
Perhaps the most authoritative source of info from IBM has been from Timothy Sipples who has been distributing OS/2 news primarily due to his enthusiasm for the product, not because it is part of his job description. Other than Sipples' snippets on the Internet, IBM is again playing "cloak and dagger" with OS/2.
In 1997 IBM made a lot of statements on the upcoming release of OS/2 Warp Server and WorkSpace On-Demand, but very little on the future of OS/2 Warp 4 as a client. The only recent news in this area has been FixPak 5 which is now widely regarded as version 4.01 of the operating system.
As you may recall, after OS/2 Warp 4 was released in 1996, the press concluded that it would be the last major release of the product. IBM vigorously denied this, even going so far as to say that there would be a "mega-release" in 1998. Well, here we are, and there doesn't appear to be anything on the horizon. This can only mean one of two things: either nothing is planned, or IBM is sorely in need of a good press secretary.
If IBM ever decides to re-inaugurate their TeleSeminars program for OS/2 (which I personally thought was an excellent opportunity to make product announcements) it would be nice to hear not how well OS/2 works with Java (we already know this), but where exactly OS/2 is going as a client. Unfortunately, no such TeleSeminars are planned.
Perhaps IBM expects us to master Spock's Vulcan "mind-meld" in order to figure out where OS/2 is going. There is only one problem with this, there isn't anyone at IBM to practice it on. Their approach to disseminating OS/2 news reminds me of the old joke, "Nobody's driving officer, we're all in the back seat." It would be nice if there was a single authoritative source of OS/2 information from IBM.
Copyright © MBA 1998
