With IBM committed to making OS/2 the industry standard upmarket single user operating system, around about 1990 there may be enough irresistible applications written for it to make it worth implementing for the average personal computer user. In the meantime, for users who simply want to add multi-tasking and extra memory for their MS-DOS applications, Digital Research’s Concurrent DOS would seem to provide all the immediate benefits and none of the hassles of OS/2. And Digital Research is now committing to have Concurrent DOS available for the IBM Personal System/2 line of computers before the end of the year. In the meantime, the company has announced that it is shipping enhanced releases of Concurrent DOS 386 and XM. The new 1.1 release of 386, which presumably is simply a cleaned-up version of 1.0, since no additions are mentioned, retails for UKP395 for the three-user version, and upgrading to 10 users costs another UKP100. Release 5.2 of the expanded memory Concurrent DOS XM version adds full 16-colour EGA support, enhanced support for the AT keyboard, and support for AST Research’s Four Port/DOS card and the four port Hostess Multiport Network Ad aptor. It costs UKP295 for three users, UKP100 more to go to six users.
