Haiku: BeOS Reborn

[Odd]

Michael Haney wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 6:16 AM, Odd <iodine at runbox.no> wrote:
>> I used to run BeOS for a while after they ported it to x86. Paid
>> for it even. Be Inc. had every DAW producer lined up to
>> port all their stuff to it, when they suddenly decided they wanted
>> to be in the appliance market. They failed. I, among others warned
>> them (I was on the Be developer maling list). Unfortunately, all those
>> DAW companies god cold feet, no one was interested in BeOS
>> for appliances, except Sony, who used it for a kitchen computer.
>> Soon after, Be failed. Too bad, but it was their own fault.
> 
> I once tried that version of Be OS that you could launch inside of
> Windows.  It was interesting to try for a while but I could never get
> the sound to work.  The OS looked like it had a lot of promise.  Its
> so sad it died like that, but at least groups like the Haiku
> development community are trying to keep its spirit alive.

Yeah, that is something at least. But there is no chance these days
that it will be more than a hobby OS for a few people. Almost like
AmigaOS. It's still used, but the community is too small for it to gain
any real traction.

>> Not only that, they couldn't compete with themselves. Back then, IBM
>> was divided in several units that competed internally. This meant that
>> IBM's own PC unit used Windows instead of OS/2. Talk about shooting
>> themselves in the foot.
>>
>> There was that too. But IBM's biggest problem was IBM.
> 
> That's true, if IBM really wanted to show confidence in their own OS
> they should have sold their PCs with OS/2 installed and preconfigured.
> Things might be different today if only they'd done at least that.

Yeah. I remember IBM advertising heavily back then. TV commercials
and other stuff. There's no doubt it was a better OS than W95. It was
even compatible with 16bit Windows, so they had a golden opportunity.

-- 
Odd