Recently, a BeOS user wrote me about whether or not it would be worthwhile to try OS/2 in light of BeOS's practical demise. In the process of replying to him, I realized that there are a number of folks out there who are not enamoured of Microsoft software, and can provide a modest influx of new OS/2 users. I've used my response to this user as this month's President's message.

To the BeOS user, I wrote:

"I have a CD copy of BeOS somewhere too. Really too bad, since it was so wonderful for audio/video stuff out of the box. Anyhow, my short answer is that OS/2 will over the years have decreasing support, but that it will remain a stable and viable platform for some time. Reasons are:
1. OS/2 runs DOS programs better than DOS did - you can have multiple programs in different windows running simultaneously, each with 640k memory & their own autoexec file. I still have some old DOS programs that won't even run under Win2K up;

2. Same is true for Windows 3.1 programs, where again newer versions of Windows will simply not even load them. This particularly griped me with Paradox 5 and WordPerfect 6.1. And all these programs are available on eBay cheap.

3. Native OS/2 programs are still out there to provide compatibility with MS Office Suite. For example, Lotus SmartSuite is available at a functional equivalent of Office 2000 & I have not had a problem with most Word & Excel import/exporting. There are also OS/2 only solutions for database, word processing, image viewing, e-mail, and spreadsheet standalone programs, as well as very good and brand new browsers like Mozilla.

4. The OS/2 community is lucky enough to have very good porting help from the Linux world - SANE, GIMP and most importantly a lot of device drivers get ported to OS/2 with fair rapidity.

IBM is doing its best to kill the OS, of course, and I would guess that within 3-5 years we're in trouble. Of course in 3-5 years, who knows what we will be using for computers or operating systems.

I would suggest that you pick up a cheap copy of OS/2 Warp 4 on eBay. SCOUG has an online help desk and we will help you get it installed, and updated to the latest fixpack. Give it a whirl, and if you like it, then get a copy of eCS (eCom Station), the latest version of the operating system. Take a look at our web site to get a flavor of what's going on, and check out the links - http://www.scoug.com."

The next time someone you talk to gets curious about OS/2, think about it - you might be able to get someone to try OS/2!

Questions, comments, ideas for any presentations, contact me at tony@scoug.com.

Copyright 2002 the Southern California OS/2 User Group. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

SCOUG, Warp Expo West, and Warpfest are trademarks of the Southern California OS/2 User Group. OS/2, Workplace Shell, and IBM are registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners.