COMDEX Attendees Remain Skeptical About OS/2

By William Zachmann
PC Week

November 26, 1990

Now that we've digested our Thanksgiving dinners, this seems like a good time to ruminate on last week's Comdex/Fall in Las Vegas. Comdex left some very strong impressions this year.

First, the trade show was bigger than ever. With more than 2 million square feet of exhibit space, Comdex was enormous. Attendance--while officially counted as up from last year--did not increase nearly as much as the exhibit space.

It appears that while vendor's appetite for more exhibit space grew heartily, buyer's appetite for the show did not.

The resulting decline in the ratio of attendees to exhibitors may be simply a function of the inability to get hotel rooms in Vegas. It may also, however, be the leading indicator of a 1984-1985-style industry slump. I suspect the latter.

The second, distinct impression was of the persistent and widespread belief attendees continued to believe in the supposed "divorce" of IBM and Microsoft, and the "death" of OS/2. Despite clear statements to the contrary by both companies and a large IBM/Microsoft pavilion on the main floor, where some 70 companies showed both Windows and OS/2 applications, an enormous number of attendees remained unconvinced.

OS/2 is quite obviously nowhere near dead. Not only did both IBM and Microsoft demonstrate continued commitment to OS/2, but a multiuser version of OS/2 by Citrix was one of the bigger attractions of the show. deep skepticism nevertheless remains.

There seems, in fact, to be surprising degree of resentment toward both IBM and Microsoft. Many corporate users appear to feel betrayed by the uncertainty over the direction Microsoft and IBM are taking regarding future operating environments.

A counterpart of all that was a much stronger presence of Unix at the show than ever before. A panel on "Unix on the Desktop: A Status Report," chaired by Unigram.X publisher Maureen O'Gara, was well attended by interested corporate developers.

Jeff Tarter's "Software Horizons: The War over Graphical Standards" plenary offered further evidence of dissatisfaction with Microsoft and IBM. Neither the industry vision of IB, Vice President for Desktop Software Fernand Serrat nor that of Microsoft Applications Vice President Mike Maples was wholly persuasive to attendees.

The clear favorite with the large audience was GeoWorks President Brian Dougherty, who won the hearts and minds of the crowd with the promise of a graphical user interface that would run on 8086 and 286 systems.

Microsoft and IBM obviously have a major credibility problem concerning Windows and OS/2. They will have to work very hard in the months ahead to persuade the industry that they really do have a common strategy concerning Windows and OS/2.

That is particularly important given the large number of corporate information-systems people at the show. More than ever, Comdex is no longer the reseller show it once was, but rather the definite place for corporate developers to come to assess products for building enterprise information systems.

Corporate IS people were the overwhelming majority of those attending conference sessions. Their presence and intense interest in the array of products at the show reflect the fact that downsizing, using microprocessor-based technologies to build large corporate information systems, is no longer a future prospect but a present reality.

Corporate IS people are looking for much more than simply a niftier spreadsheet or word-processing program. they are looking for hardware and software platforms they can use to build major, enterprisewide systems. For that, they want clear and stable directions in operating environments.

If IBM and Microsoft do not provide such direction, articulate a consistent policy and display actions consistent with their words, corporate IS folk are clearly prepared to look elsewhere. Unix is where they are most likely to look.