On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 19:23, John Boyle wrote: >The company that really let everyone down was IBM, with their abandoning of >both OS/2 and VIA VOICE FOR LINUX!
IBM was legally hoodwinked by Microsoft into not releasing the new version of OS/2 before Win95 was released: * By the time OS/2 could be released, most OEMs had contracts with Microsoft prohibiting installation or distribution of an OS other than one provided by Microsoft on their products; * By the time those OEM contracts expired, OS/2 was so far behind in both market share, and available applications, that neither developers nor purchasers were interested in it; * IBM decided to cut their losses with OS/2, and sell it. eCommStation is the current version; Via Voice for Linux is a slightly different issue. * IBM sold/licensed/gave away rights to distribute Via Voice for Windows and Macintosh to ScanSoft; * IBM did sell Via Voice for Linux technology as an embedded device application, after ScanSoft started distributing Via Voice for Windows And Via Voice for Macintosh; jonathon --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
