OS/2 Obituary

OS/2 version 1 was a dismal failure - that's really all I have to say about that. Version 2.0 had moderate success mainly due to Citrix Winview (the precursor to WinFrame and MetaFrame), however warp server (version 3 through to 4.51) was a spectacular OS.

IBM decided to collaborate with Microsoft in creating OS/2. The original idea was that Windows 3.x would be the desktop OS and OS/2 would be the server OS. As a result there was a fair amount of shared code between the two. At the time, Microsoft didn't have a server/network solution and IBM had Lan Manager. Microsoft also had a deal with Novell that allowed Windows to dovetail into Netware and use the IPX/SPX protocol. Novell and IBM also had their deal which allowed their stuff to interoperate as well. It was all really cozy: Microsoft owned the desktop, Novell owned the network, IBM owned the server. Everyone knew whose turf was whose.

Then a weird thing happened. Microsoft released the Windows 3.1 upgrade and sold 30 million copies in the first two months. That was on the back of 8 million in sales of Windows 3.0 over the previous two years! Microsoft crunched the numbers and decided to write their own server OS and networking system. They dumped the deals with Novell and IBM and decided to write their own server OS and networking protocols.

However the deal with IBM was set in stone. IBM had the rights to nearly all of the windows APIs and in turn, Microsoft owned about 30% of Warp Server. The divorce was a bitter one that (intentionally) delayed the release of Warp Server. But release it did. However another weird thing happened...

On the release date of Warp Server, Windows NT had more press coverage, advertising and editorial space devoted to it than warp server. In fact, nearly twice as much. At this time, NT wasn't even in alpha. It was vapourware! Over the weeks and months that followed, press coverage for warp server declined but NT coverage remained constant. Microsoft simply out marketed Warp Server.

The reality was that warp server was much more capable than even Windows NT 4.0 - which wasn't released until years later.

The irony was that Microsoft made more money per copy of OS/2 that IBM sold than it did from every copy of Windows NT they sold. Essentially, sales of OS/2 Warp Server funded the development of Windows NT.

To buy time, Microsoft release an update to Windows 3.1 called Windows for Workgroups 3.11. This had a very crude networking system called NetBEUI (NetBIOS Extended User Interface). Microsoft simply took NetBIOS (which came to them from the IBM deal) and instead of attaching it to a routable protocol such as IPX or IP, they simply sent it out as a raw broadcast. It was really horrible, but it worked. As a side issue, Novell engineers suddenly discovered that all the great interoperability between Windows and Netware had disappeared. Workarounds were established, but things would never been the same.

The other gain that MS had from IBM was the HPFS file system that IBM developed. MS made a few small changes and called it NTFS.

The deal with Novell and IBM held solid and Novell released a version of Netware that ran as an application on top of Warp Server. This meant that Novell sites (accounting for 87% of networks at the time) could run a single server for both application and networking. And because of the shared code, Windows apps could run on Warp Server. Netware for OS/2 ran with only a 5% overhead when compared to a bare-metal server.

Quite simply, OS/2 Warp Server was better, faster, cheaper and more capable than Windows NT ever was. At the time Windows NT didn't even exist as a product, yet Microsoft cut deals with large organisations and Governments worldwide to install Windows NT and not OS/2. In nearly every case these decisions were made without reference to the technical people in the organisation. Microsoft had worked out that as long as their people are playing golf with your boss, your opinion as an engineer is not going to count very much. IBM relied on the (now waning) adage that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

Yet many places DID buy and implement Warp Server. In some cases, it continues to be used. NCR ATMs still use OS/2 Warp Server as do ticketing machines, baggage handling systems, voice mail systems, telecommunications systems and satellite control systems. Warp Server particularly shines in environments where any latency is unacceptable such as real-time systems. OS/2 trained engineers describe Warp Server as "it just works"; meaning it doesn't crash, doesn't need to be restarted on regular basis, doesn't suffer from bottle necks or glitches and doesn't need to be restarted for updates. You install it and it runs for the next ten years.

IBM eventually gave up on Warp Server selling it to Serenity Systems in 2001 where it was renamed eComStation. The latest version is 2.1GA (General Availability) which was released in 2011. Sales are low and Serenity Systems allows you to download it for free. It will run virtualised in Oracle Virtual Box.

As a side irony, about ten years ago a company in Russia wanted to run Warp Server virtualised. Vmware  couldn't do the job at the time, so they hired some programmers and created a new company to write the virtualisation software. They named the company Parallels Inc.

There is a project called OSFree to recreate Warp Server as an Open Source OS.