OS/2 Warp FAQ List (20 Feb 95)

(1.6) Why Choose OS/2 Warp?

Why should I choose OS/2 Warp over its competitors?

There are many products which compete with OS/2 Warp, at least to some 
extent.  Before comparing OS/2 Warp with those products, it is important 
to understand what strengths OS/2 Warp brings to the table.

OS/2 Warp requires a PC with a 386SX (or better) and preferably 6 MB of 
RAM (or more).  If you do not have the hardware required to run OS/2 Warp 
(and cannot conveniently upgrade), other choices should be considered. 
 However, OS/2 Warp is considered by far the "lightest" (in terms of 
resource requirements) of all the new crop of 32-bit operating systems 
(which includes Microsoft NT, NeXTStep, Novell UnixWare, and Solaris). 
 Furthermore, IBM has made great strides in reducing the amount of memory 
required by OS/2 Warp.  A PC which is well-equipped to run Windows for DOS 
is also well-equipped to run OS/2 Warp.

OS/2 Warp is based on a stable, proven design (which started with OS/2 
1.0, introduced in 1987).  Today's OS/2 Warp barely resembles Version 1.0, 
yet applications written for that version still run under OS/2 Warp, 
unmodified.  OS/2 1.x found ready markets in so-called "mission critical" 
applications, including automatic teller machines for banking, 
point-of-sale systems, process control and factory automation, network 
software, and more.  Other operating systems (particularly NT) have not 
had the benefit of a long period of testing and reliable operation.

As noted in (1.3) DOS and Windows Compatibility, OS/2 Warp is generally 
acknowledged to be the most DOS and Windows compatible 32-bit operating 
system on the market.  OS/2 Warp users have access to the broad range of 
software written for these environments (in addition to the growing 
library of native OS/2 Warp software) without sacrificing compatibility or 
performance.  Again, this ability stands in contrast to the mediocre DOS 
and Windows compatibility (and performance) found in such operating 
systems as NT, NeXTStep, Solaris, UnixWare, Linux, and others.  NT, for 
example, cannot tolerate most DOS device drivers, has no specific DOS 
session features, and will not run DOS graphics applications in windows on 
the desktop.  (NT also does not include any support for PCMCIA cards or 
Advanced Power Management, so common in notebook computers.)  IBM calls 
OS/2 Warp "the integrating platform" because it actually lends 
functionality to all applications, even if you only run DOS and Windows 
programs.

Currently DOS (with or without Windows) is the most common operating 
environment on PCs (with OS/2 Warp in second place and closing the gap). 
 OS/2 Warp provides several advantages over plain DOS/Windows, such as:

 Preemptive multitasking.  OS/2 Warp can run more than one application at 
 the same time, and no application can ever take all the CPU attention 
 away from the other tasks.  Downloading files, formatting diskettes, 
 printing, mathematically intensive tasks, and other computer-hogging jobs 
 can run reliably, in the background, freeing your computer so you can 
 work more effectively and save time.

 Multithreading.  OS/2 Warp applications can be written to use threads 
 (also known as subtasks).  Threads also run in the background so that an 
 application never stops responding to your input.  For example, with the 
 DeScribe word processor's multithreaded printing, you can tell the 
 application to print the file then immediately make another revision, 
 without waiting for the document to even spool to the print queue.

 Enhanced Configurability.  Your DOS applications, for example, can have 
 individually tailored CONFIG.SYS settings -- no rebooting required.  So, 
 if you want to play that game of Wing Commander, you do not have to get 
 rid of your TSRs and network drivers beforehand.

 Crash Protection.  Every application running under OS/2 Warp is isolated 
 from all the other applications.  If one application decides to write to 
 random areas of memory, OS/2 Warp will promptly notify you of the 
 offense.  All your other applications continue to run, unharmed.  Neither 
 DOS nor Windows offer such complete protection.  For example, if you have 
 a Windows application which likes to crash (cause a GPF error), OS/2 Warp 
 can run it in a separate Win-OS/2 session.  If the application self 
 destructs, all your other DOS, Windows, and OS/2 Warp applications which 
 may be running never miss a beat.  No operating system is totally crash 
 proof, but OS/2 Warp is widely considered to be extremely reliable, both 
 because of its design and because of its maturity.

 Workplace Shell.  Literally millions of dollars are spent on Windows 
 desktop replacements and accessories (such as Norton Desktop, PC Tools, 
 and so on).  If you do not like the Windows Program Manager and File 
 Manager (still available under OS/2 Warp), OS/2 Warp's Workplace Shell is 
 worthy of your attention.  Folders can be nested.  Objects (including 
 files) can have long names (so you don't have to remember what 
 "Y6EDGQTR.ILK" means).  Your desktop is almost infinitely customizable: 
 every folder can have a different color or background, for example.  And 
 consistency is maintained throughout the Workplace Shell.  Want to print 
 a file?  Drag it to the printer object.  Fax it?  Drag it to the Fax 
 object.  Open it?  Drag it to an application program object.  Delete it? 
  Drag it to the Shredder.

 Access to OS/2 Warp Applications.  There's only one way to add OS/2 Warp 
 applications to your PC: add OS/2 Warp.  Many of these applications are 
 not available for any other operating system.  For example, Watcom's 
 VX-REXX and HockWare's VisPro/REXX let you create fully graphical 
 applications in no time flat.  (VX-REXX recently won PC Magazine's 
 Editor's Choice award.)  Lotus cc:Mail for OS/2, which takes full 
 advantage of the Workplace Shell, makes e-mail simple.  IBM's Ultimedia 
 Builder/2, Workplace/2, and Manager/2 are the best multimedia authoring 
 tools available anywhere, better than anything for Windows, says PC 
 Magazine.  And you can only play Galactic Civilizations for OS/2, the 
 Number 1 PC game according to a recent Internet list, when you're running 
 OS/2.  OS/2 Warp allows you to run the largest library of 32-bit 
 applications available for the PC.

 OS/2 Warp costs less (much less) than its competitors.  OS/2 Warp is a 
 best seller and continues to gain ground on plain DOS/Windows, meaning 
 application developers and hardware manufacturers take notice (most 
 recently Corel Systems and Toshiba).  OS/2 Warp is likely to be the most 
 popular operating system on PowerPC systems.  OS/2 Warp coexists 
 peacefully with your existing DOS/Windows setup (using either DualBoot or 
 Boot Manager), so you can make the switch at your own pace.  OS/2 Warp 
 continues to capture industry awards.  Most recently, Windows Magazine 
 named OS/2 to its Top 100 list.  And, for the second straight year, OS/2 
 won Overall Product of the Year from the readers of Infoworld.  (OS/2 
 also earned Infoworld's Software Product of the Year and the 
 Interoperability Award.  In fact, OS/2, with three of the highest awards 
 all to itself, was the only product to win more than one award.)  As an 
 OS/2 Warp user, you'll be joining the over eight million OS/2ers around 
 the world who are experiencing a new level of performance when they use 
 their PCs.

 But shouldn't I wait for Windows95 ("Chicago")?

 Most industry observers believe that Chicago (Windows95) will not be 
 available until far into 1995.  In other words, Microsoft is promising a 
 product which will offer some of OS/2 Warp's features at some point in 
 the future.  Even if you think you are interested in Chicago, OS/2 Warp 
 will not suddenly render your PC unable to run it.  So why not upgrade to 
 OS/2 Warp in the meantime?

 Yet there are several good reasons why you may not be making that 
 upgrade.  First, like most first releases, Chicago will suffer from its 
 share of bugs.  It will take a considerable amount of time (and expense) 
 to solve these problems.  Second, OS/2 Warp is by no means standing 
 still.  By the time Chicago is released, OS/2 Warp could possibly enjoy 
 another upgrade.  (The time between new releases of OS/2 has been 
 averaging about 14 months.  The last major Windows update, Version 3.1, 
 was introduced in April, 1992.)  In other words, it will have features 
 (such as support for Symmetric Multiprocessing and the PowerPC) that are 
 not even contemplated for Chicago.  Or, in still other words, vaporware 
 (software which does not yet exist) always sounds more appealing than 
 real software on the surface, because software vendors can make whatever 
 claims they like.

 Chicago will not support any OS/2 Warp applications (whose number is only 
 growing with time).  On the other hand, OS/2 Warp now supports the Win32s 
 programming interface for 32-bit Windows applications.  The resource 
 requirements for Chicago will increase over Windows 3.1 (at the same time 
 IBM has fine tuned OS/2 Warp to use less memory and perform better) -- at 
 best Chicago will demand a PC no less powerful than that demanded by OS/2 
 Warp.

 Byte and Windows Sources have pointed to some architectural problems with 
 Chicago.  These publications have cited Chicago's pervasive use of 16-bit 
 subsystems (which will cause "thunking," i.e. a performance hit for calls 
 made by 32-bit applications), failure to protect 16-bit Windows 
 applications from crashing the entire system (which OS/2 Warp already 
 prevents), and the 16-bit locking mechanism (which means that 16-bit 
 Windows applications will not be preempted by Chicago, possibly resulting 
 in hung background file transfers, poor multimedia performance, and other 
 problems, even for 32-bit applications).  Moreover, reportedly all video 
 and network device drivers for Windows 3.1 must be rewritten to work with 
 Chicago.  A recently published book, "Undocumented Windows95," even 
 suggests that new 32-bit Windows applications may still depend on real 
 mode vestiges from ordinary DOS.

 Finally, Microsoft made similar promises (on the overwhelming success to 
 be achieved by NT and Windows for Workgroups, most recently).  These 
 promises have not come to pass.  It is far from certain whether Chicago 
 will satisfy the marketplace.

 For a concise, researched, official view of OS/2 Warp when compared to 
 the as-yet-unreleased Windows95, IBM has published a whitepaper which is 
 available from online services such as CompuServe and the Internet.

 Related information:

 (0.4) Special Report on OS/2 Warp 
 (1.3) DOS and Windows Compatibility

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