Despite Microsoft Corp’s stated commitment to win 30% of the network operating system market, currently dominated by Novell Inc’s NetWare, with its LAN Manager, analysts are predicting the death of LAN Manager following Microsoft’s announcement of plans for the so-called OS/2 version 3. Despite the name, that operating system will be almost entirely composed of new code but what it does retain from Microsoft’s existing code will be some LAN Manager functions. OS/2 version 3 is described as a distributed operating system which will include network operating features such as file printing, file sharing and printer sharing across the network. It will also have fault-tolerant and multi-processing capabilities. All these are available in LAN Manager. At a Microsoft seminar in the US, analyst Ruthman Quindlen expressed the doubts felt about the future of LAN Manager by many analysts when he said, If Version 3 implements a network operating system, why do we need LAN Manager anymore? Microsoft’s answer is that OS/2 version 3 includes some, but not all, of the features of LAN Manager.
Seems unsure
LAN Manager, it says, is different from OS/2 because it also has application services such as log-on security, electronic mail and data sharing. But Phil Buggins of Microsoft UK does not discount the possibility that these features may be bundled with future versions of OS/2 version 3. Although Buggins denies that there will be any competition between LAN Manager and OS/2 version 3, he agreed that the latter could be seen as network operating system in competition with systems such as you might get from IBM, Novell or Oracle. But if OS/2 version 3 is a competitor NetWare, surely it is in competition with LAN Manager too? Microsoft’s answer is that the system is a modular server-based operating system and that various users will use the system differently. But it seems unsure which users will continue with LAN Manager and which will switch to OS/2 version 3. Phil Buggins refutes the idea that only those running machines under OS/2 at the moment will buy LAN Manager. What is certain is that OS/2 version 3 will run on Intel and RISC-based machines. Buggins says that OS/2 version 3 shows a new direction – but where it will end up does not appear to have been decided yet. Prospects for the product took a further knock in its battle against Novell’s NetWare when IBM Corp became the second manufacturer this year to hedge its bets and prepare to desert the sinking LAN Manager ship.
What future for LAN Manager now that IBM is endorsing NetWare and Microsoft says that many of LAN Manager’s features will be in OS/2 version 3? Sonya McGilchrist examines
In January, 3Com Corp handed its network operating system customers over to Microsoft, saying it wanted to be an independent company. Now IBM has signed an agreement with Novell to support NetWare throughout its Systems Application Architecture. The IBM move knocks a hole in Microsoft’s unofficial strategy for denting Novell’s massive market share. The Microsoft-IBM alliance was intended to squeeze NetWare out of the market by selling the IBM hardware, OS/2 operating system and the LAN Manager network operating system, which is based on OS/2, as a complete solution. But OS/2 has not been a success and even where IBM machines running under OS/2 have been sold, mostly at the low end, users have been configuring them with NetWare anyway. Now IBM appears to have acknowledged that in the end, customers will use whatever products they are happy with and it has agreed to take Portable NetWare for its RS/6000 machines, and may also put it on the AS/400, although that is not announced. IBM is also expected to add NetWare Loadable Modules to its MVS-based mainframes, enabling them to act as NetWare servers. IBM is also to market and support current and future NetWare 2.X and 3.X products – and Novell will develop an enhanced version of NetWare for the RS/6000 Unix box and for OS/2. NetWare for OS/2 will then be integrated with the IBM OS/2 Communications Manager to give NetWare OS/2 users access
to Systems Application Architecture services. So, say industry analysts, LAN Manager has lost its only advantage over NetWare. Not suprisingly, Microsoft does not see it this way. Phil Buggins of Microsoft UK claims that the strategic direction for OS/2-based technologies is firmly on course and he describes the IBM’s alliance with Novell as a pragmatic move to satisfy an installed user base.
Win either way
Strategically, says Buggins, IBM’s relationship with Microsoft is far more important because IBM is still committed to OS/2 in the long term. Buggins added that the IBM-Novell pact does not affect anything that IBM and Microsoft have said in the past. There are still plans therefore to merge LAN Manager with IBM’s LAN Server – IBM announced the availability of OS/2 LAN Server 1.3 last month. But after the Windows 3.0 embarrassment, it is beginning to be evident that IBM no longer regards its agreements with Microsoft as worth the paper on which they may or may not be written. And with Microsoft saying that it will put many of the features of LAN Manager into OS/2 version 3, the New Technology operating system that will be OS/2 in little more than name, once again, as with OS/2 and Windows, it will be expecting to win either way – users will remain true to LAN Manager or they will move over to OS/2 3.0 – what does it matter: they’ll both be Microsoft products.
