Louis Gerstner has been going so far out of his way to stress that IBM Corp’s proposed acquisition of Lotus Development Corp is all about Notes and nothing to do with OS/2 that people are widely forecasting that the company is finally ready to throw in the towel on OS/2 and redirect most of the development money earmarked for it into Notes. An agreed deal between IBM and Lotus was announced on Sunday evening: IBM pays $64 a share cash, $3,520m all told, Lotus keeps its name and Cambridge base, Jim Manzi continues to run it as an IBM senior vice-president, the Lotus sales force won’t be collapsed into the IBM one, and spousal benefits for gay and lesbian employees will continue. Manzi is to work closely with IBM software chief John Thompson, which has some people worried because they are believed not to get on too well. Ray Ozzie, developer of Notes, has agreed to remain. On the future of OS/2, Scott Winkler, an operating systems analyst with Gartner Group Inc told the New York Times that he predicts that IBM will cut back its investment in OS/2 within a year. IBM would continue to support customers who used it, but would curb further development and divert most of the money now spent on OS/2 to Notes; it’s like the Vietnam War, a long-time IBM executive who left the company recently said of OS/2. After a while you’ve been there so long you can’t get out, he told the Wall Street Journal, suggesting IBM would fold some of OS/2’s features into Notes, then let the operating system fade away.
