IBM to Unveil Latest Shot at Microsoft Inc. : Computers: Big Blue’s new OS/2 Warp system is aimed at taking business away from the dominant PC industry player.
IBM Corp. today hopes to sneak through a window of opportunity created by the folks who wrote the book on Windows--Microsoft Corp.
At a media event in New York, IBM will unveil a bells-and-whistles version of its 7-year-old operating system for personal computers, OS/2, which until now has been a costly and embarrassing failure. The Armonk, N.Y., computer giant will pump $50 million into a high-profile advertising campaign to promote the product, due in stores late this month.
The new version, OS/2 Warp, is designed to appeal to home and small-business users, and, unlike earlier versions, it has drawn high praise from reviewers. With Warp, IBM launches perhaps its last, best campaign to unseat or at least unnerve Microsoft, the industry’s dominant player, which has delayed the rollout of its own new operating system, Windows 95, until mid-1995.
“The war’s not over,” said Mike Nolan, manager of consumer software marketing for IBM’s Personal Software Products division in Boca Raton, Fla. “A very exciting battle is coming up.”
As Warp makes its debut, rumors continue to move at warp speed through Silicon Valley and Wall Street that IBM and Apple Computer Inc. are finally close to agreement on a common standard for personal computers that use the snazzy PowerPC chip, jointly developed by IBM, Apple and Motorola.
Such an agreement would enable Apple, IBM and possibly others to sell PCs that use one another’s software--thus bridging the gap that has long separated Apple from the rest of the industry and possibly posing a real threat to industry standard PCs that use Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft software.
Both companies say they are optimistic that an agreement will be reached soon.
Machines based on the Intel-Microsoft combination have dominated the PC business for years, reaping immense profits for those two firms while leaving the rest to struggle with thin profit margins and mount one futile attempt after another to find alternatives.
A few believers say OS/2 Warp might finally begin to make a dent, though they agree that IBM faces an uphill battle.
“It looks to me that IBM has finally found the right combination to make OS/2 a hit,” said William F. Zachmann, president of Canopus Research, a market research firm in Duxbury, Mass. “The folks at Microsoft are getting a little edgy about the whole thing.” He likes the idea that OS/2 Warp can be installed right over Windows or DOS so users can still run all their existing programs.
Several analysts on Monday praised OS/2 Warp for offering great value at a projected price of less than $100. It requires far less memory than earlier versions--or than Windows 95 is likely to demand--and comes equipped with several applications, such as a spreadsheet, faxing capabilities, personal information manager and access to the Internet.
But some doubt it will capture significant market share.
“Warp is a vast improvement” over OS/2, said David Coursey, editor of P.C. Letter, an industry newsletter. “Its proponents might even say it does more now than Windows 95 will do eight months from now.”
However, Coursey noted that IBM, because of its own bumbling of the compatibility issue, “has lost the ability to determine new standards.”
