| From: James Knott <james.knott@rogers.com> | | Actually, OS/2 lasted for quite a while in the financial sector because | it was far more stable than Windows. I remember hearing that Imperial Oil used it a lot (from someone having to deal with migrating away). Technical qualities might not have mattered. Banks and big oil companies computerized early and they seemed to be infected early with the idea that IBM was always the safe choice. They also bought into Token Ring for a similar reason. Yet the open ethernet standard and marketplace one. It was just hard for central planners to handle. I was annoyed at OS/2 because it was announced long before it was reasonable to use it. UNIX was ready and able to do the job but the earth was scorched by these promises. Of course it looked safer to wait for IBM and Microsoft (the old reliable AND the young turks). This is an echo of the lawsuit that CDC brought against IBM in the 1960s. CDC had supercomputers but sales were blocked by IBM promises that were put off and then never actually delivered (hear of an actual IBM/360 model 60 or 70? The model 90 was poor and soon replaced. Before that, Stretch (7030) was a failure too.). It is a bit like the Itanium. Most of the RISC processor workstation vendors folded (or were folded) when the Itanium loomed. In actual delivery it was a bit of a squib: late and slow. This bought time for the x86 to get good enough so that it won.