OS/2 was better, but so was NeXTSTEP, AmigaOS 2.0, and BeOS, BSD386, IRIX, and so on.
Windows could have competed with merit only with GEOS and might have lost.
Windows 3.0 ... 3.11 was objectively the worst UI and or OS at the time. Then Windows 95 made minimum improvement, still behind everyone worth mentioning.
I lived and worked through OS/2 1.1-1.3 and OS/2 1.1-Warp. The main reason of failure was that IBM still saw itself as a hardware company. OS/2 was enterprise software to sell PS/2 computers.
It was such a hassle to get it to run well on commodity hardware. It ran great on a $4000 PS/2 model 77, but that won't win market share like Windows 3.0 that ran on pretty much anything with a few megs ram. OS/2 was also memory hungry adding to the barrier to entry. Great OS--at least we have Win NT that kept some good parts.
> IBM's determination to serve its customers with 80286 PS/2s, and keep a promise, resulted in OS/2 being a failure. That is what allowed Windows to gain the upper hand.
OS/2 was better, but so was NeXTSTEP, AmigaOS 2.0, and BeOS, BSD386, IRIX, and so on. Windows could have competed with merit only with GEOS and might have lost.
Windows 3.0 ... 3.11 was objectively the worst UI and or OS at the time. Then Windows 95 made minimum improvement, still behind everyone worth mentioning.
https://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
I lived and worked through OS/2 1.1-1.3 and OS/2 1.1-Warp. The main reason of failure was that IBM still saw itself as a hardware company. OS/2 was enterprise software to sell PS/2 computers.
It was such a hassle to get it to run well on commodity hardware. It ran great on a $4000 PS/2 model 77, but that won't win market share like Windows 3.0 that ran on pretty much anything with a few megs ram. OS/2 was also memory hungry adding to the barrier to entry. Great OS--at least we have Win NT that kept some good parts.
> IBM's determination to serve its customers with 80286 PS/2s, and keep a promise, resulted in OS/2 being a failure. That is what allowed Windows to gain the upper hand.
Related:
Gordon Letwin OS/2 Usenet post (1995)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42336440