OS/2 Shareware BBS: 14 Text/14-Text.zip/SEMINAR.ZIP/SEMINAR.TXT

Text File | 1991-01-31 | 11KB | 193 lines

     OS/2 is Alive and Well and Coming to a Windows Near You!


     by John D. Ruley, Associate Editor


     "Contrary to what you may have heard yesterday, I am not dead, and I
     have not been dropped or scrapped. Neither has OS/2!" -- Steve
     Ballmar, Senior VP of Systems Software at Microsoft, commenting on
     the Wall Street Journal's January 28 cover OS/2 story.

     The 1991 Microsoft strategy seminar had been planned for months as a
     way to "get the word out" about future developments. But this year
     was different -- because of a story in the Wall Street Journal
     ("Microsoft is dropping OS/2 and plans to build its future operating
     system software around Windows, page 1, January 28, 1991), the
     conference assumed an unintended importance, for Microsoft as well as
     the attendees.

     It's difficult to distill down all that was said, formally and
     informally, into just two pages -- but I'm going to try. One note up
     front: everything I'm going to say is "from the horses mouth", _but_
     I'm talking about _plans_ rather than _products_ -- so this all may
     change!  With that said, Microsoft's strategy for the next few years
     revolves around four major areas: New Technology (NT), Windows,
     Networking and Objects.

     New Technology _everywhere_

     The first of these, NT, is the answer to the questions all of us have
     been asking about the future of OS/2.  It's _not_ a product, and
     probably will not be -- rather it's a technology which is going to
     wind up in a lot of places.

     NT is a completely new Operating System kernel being developed by
     Microsoft'sadvanced operating systems division.  In contrast to
     earlier operating systems, including both OS/2 and DOS, NT is
     modular, portable (98% written in C), and based on an
     object-oriented, client-server architecture.  It's designed to run on
     high performance processors -- initially the Intel 386 and 486,
     probably later on one or more RISC machines -- which support a
     "flat", unsegmented, memory address space. The NT kernel is also
     designed to support symmetric multiprocessors, by dispatching
     execution threads or complete programs to different CPUs on a
     prioritized basis. At the moment, the single-tasking kernel is
     complete, and Microsoft sources tell me that it's fully operational
     with an OS/2 command-line interface _on both Intel and RISC based
     microprocessors_.  Programmers can expect to see NT development tools
     by the end of this year.

     The second area of advancement is Windows, which is to become the
     standard user interface, _and_ the new mid-range operating system,
     when combined with the NT kernel.  The new APIs for using Windows
     with that kernel are called 32-bit Windows, or "Win32", and include
     many of OS/2s features, such as preemptive multitasking, execution
     threads, and 32-bit "flat" memory addresses.  Windows is also
     becoming modular, with many advanced feature sets, called
     "extensions" available to be added to the base system.  Extension
     sets under development include Multimedia (covered elsewhere in this
     issue), Sound (a subset of multimedia) and Pen support (sometimes
     called Pen Windows).

     The Pen Extensions are particularly interesting, and were
     demonstrated at the seminar -- they permit a hand-held stylus to
     function as a mouse replacement, but go beyond that to provide
     real-time handwriting and gesture recognitiion.  The result is that
     unmodified Windows applications (Excel was demonstrated) become
     completely operable without a keyboard or mouse.  This is likely to
     produce a revolution in new, very small, personal computers.

     For the near future, before the NT kernel ships, Windows is being
     modified to coexist with OS/2 in two ways: first, by integrating the
     former system migration kit (SMK) and binary compatibility libraries
     (BCL) into a single new system called Windows Libraries for OS/2
     (WLO).  In contrast to previous attempts to marry Windows with OS/2,
     WLO must be used by the programmer -- it will not allow existing,
     non-WLO compatible Windows applications to work in OS/2 -- on the
     other hand, WLO has the great advantage that it actualy _works_.
     Microsoft announced that versions of Excel and Word created with WLO
     are in final beta now.  To encourage developers to use WLO, Microsoft
     intends to integrate it directly into the Windows SDK sometime this
     year.

     Windows will also, of course, run with DOS 5.0, which will be
     introduced shortly.  DOS 5.0 amounts to an enhancement of DOS to
     improve performance, and includes no new features of earth-shattering
     importance.

     Networks and Objects

     Networking is the third component of the overall strategy -- and is
     the one that assures OS/2s future.  Microsoft sees networks as the
     majority of its future business user base, and support for these
     users as essential to their continued prosperity.  Accordingly, a
     high-end Operating System based on the NT kernel, currently called
     OS/2 version 3.0, will be enhanced to function as the best possible
     server operating system.  These enhancements will include moving much
     of the LAN Manager kernel into the operating system, and exploiting
     the installable file system (IFS) feature to provide new levels of
     functionality.  One of these new file systems will be a distributed
     file system (DFS), which will permit any storage volume on any
     network server to be acessed by any user (security settings
     permitting, of course) -- in effect, "M:" will span many disks on
     many computers.  In addition, greatly improved security features will
     be implemented at the operatingsystem level, allowing NT-based
     operating systems to be used at secure government facilities.  This
     will be complemented by the incorperation of a POSIX-compliant API
     for government users.

     Windows will also be modified to work better on the network --
     Microsoft's view is that the NT-based enhanced Windows product will
     be the preferred system for network _clients_.  To this end, the
     Win32 API will include named pipes, mailslots, and so forth.  The
     named pipe facility is particularly important, and will be enhanced
     to provide peer-to-peer operation, unlike the current system, where
     pipes have to be created by servers.

     _Some_ of these features _may_ be added to the 16-bit Windows API
     set, to permit users of less capable (286 based) PCs to take
     advantage of the network -- but this has not been decided at this
     time.

     Further networking enhancements will include combination of DFS with
     a powerful Remote Procedure Call (RPC) system,  allowing networked NT
     to function as a true distributed operating system, with programs
     executing on various machines on the network.  This will combine with
     multiprocessor support to make NT the ideal base for enterprise-wide
     information systems.

     The final component of the overall strategy is Objects.  This is at
     the core of the "Information at your fingertips" concept introduced
     by Microsoft CEO William Gates III at last years COMDEX.
     Conceptually, it means that the user will no longer be aware of, or
     concerned with, details of the location of programs and data --
     indeed, the distinction between the two will blur significantly.
     Gates forsees the elimination of the current program manager and file
     manager, and their replacement by a query-based interface -- rather
     than finding a document yourself, you will describe it to the
     computer, which will find it for you.  In combination with the new
     user-interface technologies provided by multimedia and the pen; and
     the distributed computing architecture; Gates expects this to
     compltely revolutionize the personal computer as we know it.

     There's lots of other news, especially for developers -- but these
     are the high points of the overall strategy.

     What Does it all Mean?

     Let's talk about time scales: the only NT-based stuff we will see
     this year is some sort of NT toolkit -- you can forget 32-bit Windows
     and OS/2 3.0 in the immediate future.  What we will see this year is
     a series of enhancements to Windows, especially in the area of
     network support.  This will be followed by the debut of NT-based
     products sometime next year, probably beginning with an enhanced
     Windows product, followed by OS/2 3.0.

     The <NI>big_ question is: what to do in the meantime?

     If you're a Windows user or programmer, relax -- things are going to
     get better over time.  Windows developers should be sure to stay on
     top of the developers kits, and make sure to get new SDKs as they
     become available, so that they can take advantage of the new APIs.
     Windows users can expect to see a reasonably smooth transition to
     NT-based applications over the next couple of years.  Users with
     entry-level (8086 or 80286 based) hardware will want to think about
     upgrading in order to take advantage of the new features, but as they
     will have more than a year to do so, it should be a relatively
     painless process.

     The OS/2 situation is more complicated.  OS/2 users can take heart at
     the imminent release of WLO, which should bring lots of Windows
     applications to OS/2 in the near future, and OS/2 version 2.0, when
     released, will actually be capable of running Windows itself in
     Standard Mode.  Microsoft's comittment to an NT-based OS/2 as the LAN
     Manager server means that OS/2 remains a safe bet as a server
     platform, so network administrators can breathe a sigh of relief.
     Developers of network applications need to start looking hard at
     Windows.

     It's the developers of native-mode OS/2 programs, and users comitted
     to OS/2 and Presentation Manager (PM) who have the most confused
     situation right now.  Microsoft did comitt to maintaining all the
     OS/2 APIs, _including_ PM, in  OS/2 version 3.0 -- but they also made
     it clear that Win32 is the preferred API.  Users and developers
     comitted to PM, especially those who've bought into IBM's Systems
     Application Architecture (SAA) must look to IBM for guidance as to
     what the future holds....

     And IBM's not talking!

     All Rights Reserved - (C) - 1991, Windows and OS/2 Magazine