Bye bye OS/2 (rhymes nicely in German)

Did not pay too much attention to the developments of OS/2 in the past years. Maybe because IBM did not plan for a 64-bit version (chuckle). This morning I listened to my favorite German radio station DLF. They have a broadcast “Computer and Communication” I listen to on Saturday mornings. In today’s show they were talking about the end of OS/2 support in 2006. Quite astonishing, according to this source, there are still roughly 600,000 installations worldwide alive and kicking. After almost 15 years of OS/2.

Digging in IBM’s website I found their “OS/2 Strategy for 2005” in HTML and PDF: “IBM plans to provide Technical Support (product-specific, task oriented software and hardware assistance) for OS/2 Warp 4 Convenience Packages and for Warp Server for e-business Convenience Packages through 31 December 2006 for Passport Advantage customers with active Software Maintenance.” Hmmm.

In above strategy document they recommend to migrate to Linux or Windows 2000 and mention their “OS/2 Server Transition Redbook”, SG24-6631-00 and “OS/2 to Linux Client Transition Redbook”, SG24-6621-00.

Hey, what about Windows XP and Windows Server? We’ve done OS/2 to Windows migrations in the past.

A message to all OS/2 customers:

Dear OS/2 customers don’t wait. There’s more than Linux with an expensive maintenance contract or Windows 2000. We are in 2005, Microsoft and the rest of the industry made revolutionary developments in the past 15 years. The world talks 64-bit on the (Windows) server today and, yes, on the (Windows) desktop too.

Maybe Microsoft should trade free Windows licenses for OS/2 licenses that are still used in production? Nice marketing idea anyways.