infobong.com

A few days ago, I was surprised to see IBM's announcement it would it would stop selling OS/2 and only offer support by contract. I was not surprised, mind you, because I thought OS/2 was a vital, growing platform, but because I thought the operating system had died about ten years ago. I wonder about who is still using OS/2, if IBM had sold a lot of big contracts to companies that don't frequently upgrade their systems. I think at one time OS/2 was a popular platform for ATMs, and I could imagine there are plenty of older ATM machines floating around.

Seeing this piece tonight, it struck me as funny that IBM in the business of supporting a lot of funky old platforms. I can understand why customers would want to stick with a proven platform like the AS/400 minicomputer, and why a company would want to keep making money by selling services and support, but IBM's business seems to be structured around a number of different platforms and selling middleware to connect the platforms. I suppose this is one reason IBM has invested heavily in Linux and other open source projects, in order to pave the way for future compatibility, and allow users to maintain their code.