[merak]

IBM came out with a very good 32-bit OS with a good 32-bit presentation manager in 92 and the first time Microsoft even had a competing product was with version 4 of Win NT in the summer of 96. Windows should have been buried and dead by that time. Instead, OS2 had been ignored to death by that time. Msoft had told every software developer in America that if they wrote code for OS2, they'd be out of the loop and never have the info necessary to write for 32-bit windows WHEN it came out, and they ALL caved. The problem as I see it is that the next time the United States has to wait four years for Bill Gates to catch up, it might be Japan Inc. or somebody else that catches up...

[Quix]

Perhaps the Chinese?

They certainly have plenty of antipathy toward Gates and his ways while enviously jealous of his money and admiring the his successful ruthlessness.

His ways are too much like their ways and they don't like being beaten at their own games.

Besides all that, their not about to sit still and be controlled by someone a Pacific away and still wet behind the ears.

It may take them time, but sooner or later, they'll maneuver out from under Gates' thumb. I think they are already well on the way with Linux.

[RWG]

Mac OSX10.2 is remarkable. Have been running it for about 2 weeks and not one crash or freeze. It is so easy to work, so fast, and has so many nifty features I may never use my pc ever again.

[Grut]

Instead, OS2 had been ignored to death by that time.

IIRC, IBM pretty much ignored it too; OS2 suffered from it's own maker's indifference as much as anything else.

[JoeGar]

Actually, OS/2 was a joint Microsoft-IBM effort. When the two companies decided to dissolve the partnership, Microsoft's OS/2 effort became Windows NT.