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Something that I never understood was how IBM didn't manage to take over the banking world with OS/2, given the sheer number of banks that use IBM midrange systems... I don't think that I've ever been in a bank that didn't use IBM System 3x/AS400 for their check clearing, at the very least, and for smaller banks, all of their work. Then, of course, there were the major banks, all using the IBM "big iron." How it was that IBM never got OS/2 into those places as the preferred client is a mystery to me... But then I "cut my teeth" on Novell NetWare, and saw the marketing screw-ups that Novell managed with the introduction of NetWare 4 and NDS. Novell couldn't sell space heaters to eskimos! And I actually installed one of the 4 copies of "blue box" Novell NetWare 3.x for a bank (with an AS/400, but no OS/2 workstations... DOS and Windows with Lan Support and PC Support was no fun back in those days!

Mark

Something that I never understood was how IBM didn't manage to take over the banking world with OS/2, given the sheer number of banks that use IBM midrange systems... I don't think that I've ever been in a bank that didn't use IBM System 3x/AS400 for their check clearing, at the very least, and for smaller banks, all of their work. Then, of course, there were the major banks, all using the IBM "big iron." How it was that IBM never got OS/2 into those places as the preferred client is a mystery to me... But then I "cut my teeth" on Novell NetWare, and saw the marketing screw-ups that Novell managed with the introduction of NetWare 4 and NDS. Novell couldn't sell space heaters to eskimos! And I actually installed one of the 4 copies of "blue box" Novell NetWare 3.x for a bank (with an AS/400, but no OS/2 workstations... DOS and Windows with Lan Support and PC Support was no fun back in those days!

Par of the problem was IBM's dogmatic clinging to token ring, and thier refusal to support etherenet.

Well, I was kind of in the thick of this as a bit of an outsider. I was doing PC assembler and a lot of VAX, Unix and database work.

One problem IBM had was all the PCs came with windows anyhow. Users had windows at home (or DOS) and OS/2 was “different” and had a cost.

I also saw a ton of IBM types seeing OS/2 EE as a huge threat on the server side. The majority of IBM was trying to convince people that if you took your data and operations off the mainframe, “you were asking for trouble.”

I’m trying to remember what apps were on OS/2. I’m recalling not many. I’m not sure any of what became MS-Office or even WordPerfect were on OS/2.