Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.misc
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!flusekw@ucs.indiana.edu
From: "WILLIAM FRANKLIN FLUSEK" <flusekw@ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: RE: Windowing Environments
Message-ID: <1991Apr16.195308.1883@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Sender: <flusekw@ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: 16 Apr 91 14:52:00 EST
Lines: 59


>Speaking of how 'much' OS/2 will set you back:
>
>The New York Times (4/16) had an article that stated IBM was cutting
>the price of OS/2 starting tomorrow.
>			   --------
>
>	Specifically: SE from $340 -> $150
>		      EE from $830 -> $690
>
>Sounds good to me.  I wonder if student prices still apply?  If so
>that would be ridiculously cheap, as far as bang for the buck.  I
>guess there is no longer a reason for people to say it is too
>expensive.  Now they can just complain that there is no software out
>there! :-)
>
>
>						-Allan MacKinnon
>
I have seen the same news in a couple of other sources, but I haven't had a 
chance to check it with our vendor liason.  It should be that the academic 
price for OS/2 SE $90 and EE $414.  The SE will be priced competitively 
with Windows (without DOS).  I have also read that IBM is considering 
bundling OS/2 SE with their 386 and 486 systems in the near future.  Once 
this starts, I think that more people will explore using it.  This is 
especially true if you run applications that have large files or lots of 
disk access (due to the HPFS).  I am on the SAS listserve and I have seen 
some times for SAS OS/2 vs SAS for DOS.  On the same machine, running the 
same program the speed difference was 2.5:1 in favor of OS/2.  Granted this 
is a limited view of things (the data set had 13,000 observations), but it 
does indicate what OS/2 can do.  Presently on my OS/2 system I have 123/G, 
Excel, Microsoft C 6.0 and Microsoft Fortran and Freelance.  I have 
WordPerfect on order and will probably order Word sometime soon.  

As far as applications in general, GUI Clearing House claims that their 
adverisements don't list anywhere near all of the PM applications that they 
carry and they list:  Active Life, Aldus PageMaker, Brief, CASE:PM for C & 
C++, CASE:PM for MS Fortran, ChipChat, Collage PM, CorelDraw!, DeScribe, 
Excel, HyperACCESS/5, Lotus 123/G, Micrografx Designer, Nexpert Object (PM 
Runtime), Object 1/PM, OS/2 PM Softset (MS), OS/2 PM Toolkit (MS), PackRat 
for OS/2, Q+E/PM, RT-Graphics, RT-Graphics Toolkit, Smalltalk/V, SpeedEdit, 
Sytos Plus/PM, WideAngle for PM, Wingz, WordPerfect 5.0, WinPRO/PM, Zortech 
C++.

Once again, this is only a partial list and includes what appears to be 
mostly development tools.  I do know that AutoCAD, SAS and SPSS are not on 
the list, among other things.

FYI,

Bill Flusek, Indiana University

Internet:	flusekw@ucs.indiana.edu
Bitnet:		flusekw@iubacs





