IBM halts 'Warp' production

Glitch could hurt bid to challenge Microsoft

Boston Globe

October 26, 1994

IBM yesterday abruptly halted production of its heavily touted new "Warp" operating system for personal computers when a technical glitch was discovered that causes the program to go haywire on some machines.

There were indications last night that the bug IBM isolated after shipping final copies of Warp to outside reviewers and professionals inside the corporation may not be the only problem with the new software.

Software developers at IBM thought the unpredictable behavior of the operating system was caused by the presence of a particular computer file, named "config.bak", on the hard disk drives of users installing Warp for the first time.  In at least one case, however, the program went awry on a machine that did not appear to contain the suspect file.

...[a spokesperson] said last night the company had not yet determined how the product advanced so far through the development process, having been tested by thousands of users, without the seemingly simple, but potentially debilitating problem being discovered.

IBM hopes to take advantage of delays in Microsoft's schedule for shipping its new version of Windows, which also has run into numerous development snags, to gain a toehold in the fast growing consumer sales sector.

Copyright 1994