To the strains of The Bangles’ Time, time, time and Cyndi Lauper’s Time after time, IBM Corp launched OS/2 Warp, billed as the operating system that’s not Windows 95, because it’s on time and it’s better. In a Sisyphus and rock scenario, IBM is trying to roll OS/2 up the mountain of 50m Windows users. IBM is offering more gizmos, easy access to and free time on the Internet, a competition, and a dozen applications for word processing, spreadsheets, charting, report writing, faxing and communications, under the title IBM Works. IBM is launching an advertising blitz to say it’s great and on time and has enlisted the help of Leonard Nimoy, of Star Trek. This has let lots of IBM executives pretend to be ‘beamed up’ and lots of journalists to quip It’s Windows Jim, but not as we know it! IBM is even giving away One Up Corp’s Source Migration Analysis Reporting Toolset Version 2.0, to help developers to move 16-bit and 32-bit applications from smelly old Windows to OS/2 Warp as well as other versions of OS/2. IBM has also announced plans for an integrated local area network client for the OS/2 Warp later this year. The client will comprise OS/2 Warp, the BonusPak, integrated networking software including requesters for LAN Server, NetWare, and LAN Distance, enhanced TCP/IP applications, and system administration tools. Internet Connection for OS/2 includes TCP/IP communications software, Internet access utilities such as Gopher, CompuServe Information Manager, File Transfer Protocol, Hilgraeve’s HyperAccess Lite, Telnet, NewsReader, and a graphical web browser called WebExplorer. With OS/2 you can run a gopher while browsing the rest of the net – referring to the competition, David Barnes, OS/2 product marketing manager, said they have a word for that in Windows – impossible! IBM claims to have improved its Workplace Shell interface. Animated icons give users a visual representation of system operations, plus new sounds to help you along your way. OS/2 Warp also has LaunchPad, a customisable floating tool bar on the desktop to access often-used applications. Warp also features Plug & Play for PCMCIA, recognising PCMCIA cards without a re-boot and commanding a given application to launched when a certain PCMCIA card is inserted.

A bit harsh

Warp is being aimed squarely at the fun-and-games market and has incorporated settings for each of over 100 of the best-selling MS-DOS and Windows games into the base operating system to improve performance. Multimedia tools include Eastman Kodak Co Photo CD support, IBM Person-to-Person for OS/2, a multimedia viewer, WIN/TV board support, new audio device drivers, Ultimedia Video IN for OS/2 and industry-leading audio-video synchronisation and stretching technology. And to entice multimedia application developers, IBM has included MPEG support, a single DIVE application programming interface, built-in Autodesk animation playback support and compressed audio support. OS/2 Warp customers get an initial 60 days of free service by telephone, from 8am to 5pm in the local time zone. Customers in the US can also receive electronic support services help in problem identification from an 800-number link to IBM Fax Service, TalkLink and CD-ROM packages. OS/2 will be available in the UK from the middle of this month for UKP85 for users who already have MS-DOS or Windows. Those without Windows will have to wait a little longer and pay UKP125. Unfortunately the pre-release version has failed to impress at least some. When Lorenzo Wood at KBW Ltd, the London software house, tried to install it an error message came up that the machine couldn’t recognise. He rebooted and the screen blanked. He then tried the OS/2 D installer, supposed to delete the existing OS/2 and replace it with Warp. It failed to install Warp but managed to delete OS/2 and also Windows, which Wood regards as being a bit harsh. – David Johnson.