OS/2 Users Make History By "Connecting The World"

Palm Harbor, FL -- November 1, 1996 -- History was made on Saturday, October 26, 1996, when OS/2 users from around the world organized a global demonstration of IBM's OS/2 Warp 4 (code-named "Merlin") over the Internet. This was the first presentation of its kind conducted independently by customers on a worldwide basis for a computer related product (perhaps for any product), thereby demonstrating the power of OS/2 and the Internet.

During the event, the CtWwM Help Desk in Florida recorded OS/2 users from 28 countries, including: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Italy, Lithuania, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. OS/2 users registered their sites via our web site (which recorded over 5,000 accesses during the day), the InterCom Internet telephone (where we had as many as 43 users concurrently at one time), and by e-mail.

A summary of the project (and graphics) can be found at: http://www.tbos2cla.com/ctwwm/

Project Audit

The following project audit was excerpted from the Editorial Page of the December 1996 issue of the OS/2 CONNECT newsletter (scheduled for distribution in mid-November). It was prepared by the Project Manager, Tim Bryce, Editor of OS/2 CONNECT.


How We Connected The World

During my 20 years in the business I have participated in a wide variety of project audits, both for clients and internally within my own company. When performing an audit it is important to stick to the facts and learn from your successes and mistakes. I don't see any reason why the "Connect the World with Merlin" (CtWwM) event should be treated any differently.

As you probably know, CtWwM was a demonstration of OS/2 Warp 4 orchestrated independently by OS/2 customers on a worldwide basis. The event was held on Saturday, October 26th at computer stores, universities, cyber cafes and other institutions. On that day, OS/2 users conducted demonstrations of the operating system as well as interface with other users over the Internet (through a web site and Internet telephone). The intent of the project was to convey a sign of customer confidence in the product. Such a worldwide demonstration of customer support is unprecedented. I do not know of any other instance where customers independently organized and conducted a worldwide marketing program. From this perspective alone, the project was a resounding success.

By The Numbers

Based on the updates to our world web map, the discussions with users at the Help Desk in Florida (via Internet telephone) and e-mail messages received, we know that:

From a product perspective, the "hot buttons" for the consumers were (in order of priority):

  1. Speech Navigation/VoiceType Dictation - this was far and away the most interesting feature to the general public.
  2. Integrated Internet capabilities.
  3. New graphical user interface with the WarpCenter.
  4. Sample OS/2 applications demonstrated (such as ColorWorks, InterCom, and the Application Sampler CD-ROM).
  5. Multitasking (the stability of multitasking under OS/2 amazed even the more ardent Windows users).
  6. Java support (although many consumers were at a loss as to how Java would directly benefit them).

There were many other highlights demonstrated, such as the Internet telephone, but those listed above represent the most popular features of OS/2 Warp 4.

The biggest weakness of OS/2, as reported by many Site Coordinators on the Project Review Forms, was lack of support for Win95/NT applications. Although other weaknesses were reported, lack of Win95/NT support garnered the most attention.

What We Did Right

On the positive side, we did several things well...

What We Did Wrong

No project is without problems though and CtWwM was no different.

Bottom-line, we lacked polish in certain areas of the demonstration and support from IBM was weak.

Conclusion

Was CtWwM a huge success? No. But it was a good first start. In spite of all of our problems, we still succeeded at getting the word out to 15,000 people; not bad for a loose confederation of customers with little marketing experience.

On the Project Review Form we asked the Site Coordinators, "Is this type of event worth doing again?" Everyone responded with a resounding "YES". However, a lot depends on IBM. Personally, I do not believe IBM has properly exploited the energies of its OS/2 customer base, thereby missing an important marketing opportunity. If we had better leadership and support from IBM, we could go a lot further in the promotion of OS/2. An army of OS/2 advocates have been mobilized, but does the vendor know how to lead them (or even want to)? The IBM PC User Group Relations does a nice job of tracking user groups but does little for stimulating marketing programs such as CtWwM. If the proper incentives and support were implemented by IBM, there is no telling how far OS/2 customers would go in terms of promoting the product in a cost-effective manner.

Copyright © 1996 by M. Bryce & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.


If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the writer and CtWwM Project Manager:

Tim Bryce Editor, OS/2 CONNECT M.
Bryce & Associates, Inc. (MBA)
777 Alderman Road Palm Harbor, FL 34683
United States
Tel: 813/786-4567 Fax: 813/786-4765 BBS: 813/786-4864
E-Mail: TimB1557@aol.com CompuServe: 76235,2364 WWW: http://warp.eecs.berkeley.edu/os2/connect/
MBA: Developers of the "PRIDE" Information Factory(R) and Batch Manager
Since 1971: "Software for the finest computer - the Mind"

IBM and OS/2 are the registered trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation. All other trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

This document has not been reviewed or approved by IBM and the contents herein are solely the responsibility of the volunteers in the "Connect the World with Merlin" project.