IBM to produce new OS/2 client – very quietly

Just over a month on from apparently mugging a new client version of OS/2 to death, IBM seems to be poised to roll one out after all. But in a way that will mean hardly anybody will notice it, far less be able to get it. Last month Stardock Systems revealed that it had been negotiating to produce a new OS/2 client under licence from IBM, but that at the last minute IBM corporate had decided it didn't want this to happen (Wicked IBM execs bayonet ailing OS/2. At the time it looked like that was that - IBM just plain didn't want to go any further with OS/2 as a client OS, and was prepared to let the existing users slowly drop off the perch. Actually, that's more or less what the IBM exec then responsible told us several years ago, and it's probably more or less the truth. But Oliver Mark of IBM Germany revealed earlier this week in an item on WarpCast that IBM would be announcing an official OS/2 Aurora Client within the next couple of days. It appears this will be based on the Warp Server for e-Business kernel. The channel for getting it though is practically non-existent. It's "a fee-based service offering," not a shrink-wrap OS for end users. IBM will be selling it on demand to larger IBM business customers. Which means, presumably, that a couple of the larger outfits still using OS/2 clients have bitched sufficiently to IBM to make the company sneak another rev out, but that IBM still wishes the remaining users would drop off the perch. ®