March '98 Reader Survey Results

Our monthly surveys usually elicit many comments from our readers, but few have elicited as many as this month's. Specifically, many readers wrote to complain that our March Reader Survey was poorly worded and poorly thought out. Many of you pointed out that it was unreasonable to believe that the average reader of OS/2 e-Zine! would have the technical expertise required to be able to judge which operating system was best for a given task.

This is a fair criticism. However, as always, it's what our readers think that we are most interested in. We prefer to leave it to the supposed "experts" at consulting and research firms to tell us which operating system is best. Our surveys are aimed at discovering what the average person's opinion is.

With that in mind, last month we asked our readers, "How do you use OS/2?".

Answers to our survey were accepted from March 16th until April 13th. We had a total of 1,576 replies to our questionnaire with 133 "spoiled" entries (replies were considered "spoiled" if they did not contain an e-mail address, if all questions were not answered or if they were duplicates). This left 1,443 valid replies. The results were as follows:

What is your primary use for OS/2?

When we founded OS/2 e-Zine! it was because we saw a real need for an end-user oriented OS/2 publication, and our core readership remains the home user. Almost half our readers last month (49.9%) told us their primary use for OS/2 was general home or personal use. This was certainly no surprise, except maybe to the non-OS/2 world who has been insisting for years that no-one uses OS/2 as a "kitchen-top" operating system. Obviously, we thought different and your responses confirm our beliefs.

What is the best platform for medium or large scale business use?

After dispensing with the initial question of OS/2 usage, we got down to business. We were curious just what our readers' opinions of various operating systems were, so we asked what you thought was the best platform for big business.

Probably IBM will be happy to know that their advertising dollars are well spent, because the majority of our readers (61.5% -- most of whom have been exposed to more than a few IBM advertisements in these pages) felt that good old OS/2 was the best OS for the job. In fact, with the scads of big banks, insurance companies and others using OS/2 to keep things running smoothly, we would have been shocked to find our readers thought anything different.

There weren't really any surprises here. Unix (other than Linux) and Windows NT were the only other notable contenders for our readers' confidence, with 11.4% and 7.3% respectively. A fair number though (13.6%) admitted that they just didn't know what would make the best big business platform.

What is the best platform for small office / home office (SOHO) use?

The question we were most curious to see the answers to was which OS our readers would recommend for a SOHO setup. In fact, the numbers here were very similar to our previous question, with OS/2 capturing the majority of your "mindshare" (64.0%). There was one significant reversal in answers between this question and the previous one though: almost no-one felt that Unix (other than Linux) was a good solution for a SOHO business but a significant number (17.5%) thought that Win95 was.

What is the best platform for Java?

Another question that IBM may be eager to hear the answer to is what readers perceive as the best Java platform. Probably not surprisingly, considering the admittedly biased sample of OS/2 e-Zine! readers, not to mention the money IBM has been spending to convince people, you overwhelmingly told us that OS/2 was the best Java platform. More than three quarters (77.7%) of you thought so. In fact, there was no other real contender in our readers' minds, with the only other significant category being those who admittedly did not know (14.0%).

What is the best platform for Games?

Finally, we asked what the best platform for games is. Again, not surprisingly, OS/2 did not win the minds of our readers, despite their obvious bias for that operating system. Almost half our readers (44.6%) feel that Win95 is better than any other platform as far as gaming is concerned. Apparently, IBM isn't the only company getting through to their target market.

A significant contender though, was the venerable DOS operating system. Though its life span should have ended years ago (and Microsoft has certainly tried to end it), almost one in four (24.7%) of our readers still think that it is the best platform for games.

That's it for this month. Don't forget to fill out this month's questionnaire and check back in May for complete results. Also, this month we have a special survey on how we can improve OS/2 e-Zine!. Please tell us what you want!

Complete March '98 Survey Results

What is your primary use for OS/2?

Category	Count	Percentage
Academic	100	6.9%
Games	7	0.5%
General home / personal use	720	49.9%
Medium or large scale business	97	6.7%
Programming / development	184	12.8%
Small office / home office	307	21.3%
Other	28	1.9%
I don't understand the question	0	0.0%
TOTAL	1,443	100.0%

What is the best platform for medium or large scale business use?

Category	Count	Percentage
Amiga	0	0.0%
BeOS	0	0.0%
DOS	2	0.1%
Linux	34	2.4%
Macintosh	2	0.1%
OS/2	887	61.5%
Unix other than Linux	165	11.4%
Windows 3.x	3	0.2%
Windows 95	19	1.3%
Windows NT	105	7.3%
Other	27	1.9%
I don't know	196	13.6%
I don't understand the question	3	0.2%
TOTAL	1,443	100.0%

What is the best platform for small office / home office (SOHO) use?

Category	Count	Percentage
Amiga	0	0.0%
BeOS	0	0.0%
DOS	4	0.3%
Linux	19	1.3%
Macintosh	37	2.6%
OS/2	924	64.0%
Unix other than Linux	4	0.3%
Windows 3.x	20	1.4%
Windows 95	252	17.5%
Windows NT	95	6.6%
Other	3	0.2%
I don't know	82	5.7%
I don't understand the question	3	0.2%
TOTAL	1,443	100.1%

What is the best platform for Java?

Category	Count	Percentage
Amiga	0	0.0%
BeOS	0	0.0%
DOS	0	0.0%
Linux	23	1.6%
Macintosh	2	0.1%
OS/2	1,121	77.7%
Unix other than Linux	45	3.1%
Windows 3.x	0	0.0%
Windows 95	21	1.5%
Windows NT	20	1.4%
Other	7	0.5%
I don't know	202	14.0%
I don't understand the question	2	0.1%
TOTAL	1,443	100.0%

What is the best platform for Games?

Category	Count	Percentage
Amiga	33	2.3%
BeOS	9	0.6%
DOS	356	24.7%
Linux	4	0.3%
Macintosh	16	1.1%
OS/2	143	9.9%
Unix other than Linux	0	0.0%
Windows 3.x	11	0.8%
Windows 95	643	44.6%
Windows NT	8	0.6%
Other	27	1.9%
I don't know	190	13.2%
I don't understand the question	3	0.2%
TOTAL	1,443	100.2%

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