Those that greeted Microsoft Corp’s dutiful chorusing of the IBM statements of direction on the future of OS/2 at Comdex in Las Vegas last month (CI No 1,306) with a large dose of scepticism seem to be fully vindicated in their belief that Microsoft’s attitude towards things that IBM wants it to do is that words cost nothing. The cracks in the united front were quickly exposed by Computerworld when the Microsofters got back to their offices. Despite the assertion both companies are making concerted efforts to enable OS/2 for 2Mb entry systems, Computerworld could find no-one at Microsoft that believed it would happen. We are trying to squeeze it down, but right now we cannot commit to a 2Mb version, said Peter Neupert, an OS/2 senior general manager, but commented that anything below 3Mb would be severely limited in function. Indeed he is counting on memory chip price erosion to make a 4Mb minimum acceptable, saying that at 3Mb, the best you can run is a limited local network client, certainly not a server. And those that believed that IBM’s endorsement of Windows for low-end machines with the caveat that it would never provide many features already or planned for OS/2 meant that Microsoft had agreed to scale back further development of Windows are also confounded. We haven’t capped Windows in any way, shape or form, vice-president of system software Steve Ballmer told Computerworld, adding that next year, Microsoft will bring out the most significant Windows release ever.
