OS/2 e-Zine! - Serving up a Winner

Serving up a Winner

- by Scott E. Regener

It's us versus them -- and we're winning.

In the midst of the launch of OS/2 Warp 4, aka. Merlin, it was easy to miss a seemingly insignificant press release from IBM. After all, the Netscape Beta is out, and desktops across America eagerly await the upgrade that will finally win over millions to the best way to compute. So what's this news about server market share? Does it matter?

Of course it does! For months, the Microsoft mantra has been what NT is going to be. NT is going to be faster than OS/2. NT is going to be more stable. NT is going to have more software. Perhaps most importantly, NT is going to be everywhere because that is where everybody is going. The gist of this, of course, is that if you're not planning on running Windows NT, you're going to be left behind because the momentum behind NT is so large that no one else will survive. This has been repeated so many times, in so many different places, that it's become almost indistinguishable from the truth. Now, new numbers are out that refute the Microsoft mantra.

OS/2 servers, it seems, are gaining market share. In fact, they're number two, behind not NT, but Novell Netware. Over 15 percent of the server market is using OS/2, with over 170,000 copies sold in just the first half of 1996. Those numbers would be small on the desktop, but in the server market, those numbers are huge! That 15 percent market share is more than all the Unix variants combined!

So what is the reaction to this tremendous revelation? Disbelief. Even us longtime supporters find the numbers a little bit surprising. If OS/2 servers were so popular, surely more people would have heard about them. After all, who knows anyone who is using an OS/2 server? I don't.

This is where the end of the press release helps. It names clients that have recently ordered OS/2 servers. The names raise eyebrows. Dean Witter. The State of California. There's more, of course, many more. These aren't small orders, either. A few hundred copies here, a thousand there, and pretty soon, it becomes obvious that whole companies are shifting to OS/2 based servers. If IBM's name alone isn't enough to convince people that OS/2 servers can be a serious player in the server market, certainly some of their customers will. After all, a stock broker can hardly afford a server crash at 3:58, Eastern time.

But what about NT?

In the other camp, scandal has struck. Microsoft has launched another typical marketing ploy that the majority of the industry just doesn't care about. Everyone knows that servers are inherently different from clients. Their jobs are different. Their needs are different. But, at least in Microsoft's case, the underlying operating system is not different. O'Reilly & Associates has disclosed the differences between NT workstation and NT server. If you discount the licenses, these differences are not as big as you'd think!

It seems that a few minor configuration changes in a few files will convince a workstation that it is a server, and vice versa. The performance is so close, it is hardly worth mentioning. So what does the $800 more for NT Server buy you? How about a lot of "free" software? How about a piece of paper permitting more simultaneous users? Hardly seems worth it, does it? Some have compared it to selling separate versions of DOS, one with FILES=20 and one with FILES=80.

Not to be outdone by itself, Microsoft has also redefined the term "user". It seems that Netscape and others have cornered the web server market. Microsoft's belated Internet strategy includes one little change in the workstation license from NT 3.51 to 4.0 which makes each web connection a "user". There can be no more operating of heavily used web pages from a workstation.

Microsoft defends this new definition by citing significant differences in the architecture of NT Workstation versus Server. Those significant differences amount to two changes in a configuration file. Of course, in those "free" utilities included with your NT server, you also get Microsoft's web server. It won't be easy to convince a purchasing agent to buy Netscape's server for more money if they already have Microsoft's.

Don't get mad, get Warped!

The above information probably isn't enough to convince everybody to use OS/2 Warp Server. It is enough, however, to give purchasing managers enough ammunition to point out that they're buying into the second largest server instead of an unproven hope. With better performance and a lower cost, it just might be enough to sell a few thousand more copies.

Scott E. Regener, a Team-OS2 member, has been using OS/2 since 1994. He currently has two OS/2 systems which he uses for games, writing, and major Internet activity.

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