This month, IBM and Lotus had their Software Expo show in Paris. Last year the show included a large "OS/2 village" but this year was different. The focus was mainly on IBM solutions for Windows NT and on the Internet as a business tool (what IBM refers to as e-business). Most computers on the show floor were running NT or Windows 95. As a last minute effort, a couple of OS/2 machines appeared in a small corner of the VIP enclosure, which was nicely decorated as a tennis stadium (IBM has been a sponsor of the French Open for more than ten years). They were showing Warp Server and the OS/2 version of Domino.
A funny thing happened regarding OS/2: a computer magazine wanted to offer free Internet access at their booth during the show. So they set up a few IBM ThinkPads running Windows 95 (as delivered by IBM). But they could not make Windows talk with the Ethernet card. Then comes PSP to the rescue: quickly repartitioning using Partition Magic, installation of Warp 4 and here you go surfing! Now, will the story appear in the magazine, and if it does will it make a big difference for OS/2? Probably not but it was fun to watch. There were many conferences during the two days of the show, mostly oriented toward the new NT strategy and everything needed to do e-business. A couple of talks and demos were about the Network Computing strategy and the place of OS/2 in the future, including the recently named Bluebird. I went to the show on the second day and found the whole place rather quiet and empty but I was told the first day was more crowded. Attendance at the conferences seemed good, at least for those I watched. This was obviously a very professional show dedicated to enterprise solutions, nothing to compare with an Apple Expo with its thousands of fans rushing to get a preview of the latest game or system utility. However IBM did some visible marketing of this event, like having big advertising billboards in all the subway stations leading to the show location in La Defense for several days before the show.
Regarding the IBM Windows NT strategy, an interesting move from IBM France was to hire Jocelyne Attal as head of that strategy. She was a top executive at Novell, after starting in IBM PSP sales about ten years ago. Here OS/2 never really had a top representative. A strategic product needs to have a human name and face associated with it to communicate with the media as well as to motivate people inside the company. It is not enough to have evangelists, an executive with full responsibility for the product is important also. Even if mistakes were made I think the period with David Barnes as the evangelist and Lee Reiswig as the executive was the best for OS/2 in the US. We never had that pair here, although we had (and still have) good evangelists.
I think Jocelyne Attal started well in her first media appearances when she insisted that IBM was committed to OS/2. Her message is that nobody within IBM should recommend a Windows NT solution over an OS/2 solution, but when customers have already chosen NT then IBM should offer them solutions rather than fight their choice. As a fan of OS/2 for personal use I don't like this kind of talk, but in the corporate and small enterprise market it makes perfect sense. The OS/2 developers and evangelists should take this as an incentive to work hard and make OS/2 a better product every day.
Please do not hesitate to send me any French specific news and information you would like mentioned in this column.
Vincent Delaruelle is a Technical Consultant at OS/2 boutique in Paris. He is also the editor of an OS/2 newsletter, la Lettre d'OS/2 Magazine.
