XEU.com and eComStation

[Joachim]

Hi all,

a bit more clarification on XEU.com is probably welcome, so here goes:

XEU.com has been successful with its IBANC (SEPA) software, see http://www.ibanc.co.uk
Mensys today is a software trading company with 3 employees. Mensys handled all eComStation communication and transactions until the end of 2014. XEU.com then decided to take things in its own hands and to invest time, energy and money in the further development of eCS. Although the transition of eCS contacts and information from Mensys to XEU.com has been far from smooth, today everything is up and running.

Since the end of 2014 I (Joachim Benjamins) have been working full time on a new version of eComStation for XEU.com. Contacts with several developers have been renewed and I am trying to find my way in the community again, in order to give eComStation the future it deserves. The expected release date of eComStation version 2.2 is October of this year. For years people, we all know who, have worked hard on this product and we are determined to make this a long term success.

Also since the end of 2014 we have focused on renewing our business contacts. Therefor we are pleased to say that there are several new organizations who have ordered eComStation and there are large parties testing eComStation to incorporate it as one of the solutions they offer to their clients.

We hope to be able to announce several partnerships in the upcoming months, which will support the future development of eComStation.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us at info@ecomstation.com or call us during office hours at +31 23 700 97 69

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Joachim

Thanks for sharing this information , I'm glad to see that XEU is communicating in public.

I understand that your  priority this days are focused on the release of eCS 2.2 but I will like to suggest to discuss this topics on the near future:
- Time ago, there used to be some discussion on reducing the price of eCS for Students and individual (non-commercial) users. I thought that the idea was good but it seems it was archived.
- (or/and) Try to make some figure to allow adoption and use of eCS to new users, like making a more flexible VM demo instead of a DemoCD for individual/personal/non-commercial use only.
- Embrace open source and collaborate to open source project with confidence. In the past it was a  loud secret that Mensys used to sponsor some of the open source development, but Mensys didn't want to show as sponsor like it was some kind of shame (personal opinion) to support open source.
- Improve the communication with the community (which you are already taking the first steps). I understand that there is a difference between a user community and running a company, but we should try to reach a common goal on the benefit of the platform and it's users.

So, that's all that came into my mind for future review.

By the way, if you want to submit formal news to the community (to show on the news area of OS2World) you can always use "Submit an Article" when you log to the main OS2World page, or you can also submit news to OS2VOICE.

Regards

[Matt Walsh]

Thanks for the information.  Glad to hear about it and will continue to support eCS
Matt Walsh
Computin' & Shootin in the desert.......

[ivan]

Hi Joachim,

No comments on the comments on the other topic you started.?

I doubt that many people here are interested in how well you are doing with  IBANC (SEPA) software unless it runs on OS/2 and has a use beyond large companies processing credit information.

What we are interested in is EXACTLY what you are doing with eCS.  Just how much of the base operating system you have updated and if there has been patching of the kernel have those patches been approved by IBM and validated for use in a validated system.

As it appears at the moment there is very little you can do to OS/2 (the base OS) so all you are actually talking about are the add-ons and maybe tweaking of the installer.

How soon can we get a factual list of what will be new in eCS 2.2 - not a list of what you hope might be there?  Until such a list is available version 2.2 is still vapour-ware - not something to tell clients to expect sometime.

Sorry if this sounds hard, it is intended to be, but there has been absolutely no information from Mensys or XEU for well over 2 years.  As a consequence of that don't expect to be welcomed with open arms unless you have something to actually show, something like a demo VM that shows all the abilities of eCS, connects to the local network and printers and allows the reading of disks in things like a NAS box.   

[Greg Pringle]

If the installer is fixed then 2.2 would be good almost no matter what else. Also being able to buy new licenses is good.

[ivan]

Greg, the problem is that we DO NOT KNOW anything about version 2.2. 

Joachim just pops in and says 'I have a piece of vapour-ware you might be interested in, just give money and it might arrive and do something - sometime'.

That is not the sort of thing that engenders confidence in the product - if they in fact actually have one.  Joachim and XEU are going to have to work very hard and produce a viable demonstration before many people will believe them.

At the moment confidence level in them producing something that will work 'out of the box' is zero. 

[Sigurd Fastenrath]

It is good that there is some kind of competition now - the presence of Arca Noae on the market might have forced Xeu to react, at least to write two postings

The Users are in a win/win position now:

As long as Xeu does not answer any question and deliver no facts, no details, nothing that can be proofed and even no sign of proof  - (only besides the "new" expected release date in October)- everything will stay the same as in the last years. So we can only win if there will ever come something reliable.
That reminds me of the notices each year that the license sell of eCS climbed every year to an all time high in 2014....  If I remember correctly Menso de Jong himself stated at Warpsock 2014 that Mensys tried to release a version of eCS but failed due to a lack of competent people. As it seems there are even less people involved at XEU now, or are there more people besides Joachim?

Arca Noae on the other hand seems to have a plan and moves straigt on - here we will win for sure.

"Konkurrenz belebt das Geschäft" is a geman saying, "Competiton alives Business"

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

I also share the idea that is good to have some kind of competition. At least it is a good step that XEU finally showed up.

Ivan, we didn't wiped out the fact that XEU didn't showed up for the last two years. Joachim/XEU had set a date for releasing eCS 2.2, lets see if they deliver and if it match the expectations. When XEU starts delivering something we will see, I personally do not want to close the door on any possibility for the platform.

But it sad that when I asked on the forums "let's find other alternative" people just complain that it can not be done and got a call to try to shut me off.  If someone still want to make some OS/2 OSS friendly AS-IS distribution (UpdCD like) I will support the idea and help with it.

Regards

[Andreas Schnellbacher]

I appreciate that Joachim has resumed his work on eCS and that he posted some information about that here. IMO eCS 2.2 beta 2 is quite ready to be released. The newer drivers have to be implemented. The longer we wait the harder it will be to find supported hardware.

IMO the release date mostly depends on the app packages that should be added, e.g. Mozilla, Java and Flash (Odin). I think it's better to release eCS without them than to delay it still a year for app versions without so many disadvantages like now.

Good luck!

[Joachim]

Hi all,

As mentioned before the transition of eComStation from Mensys to XEU.com has been difficult, a waste of time and an energy drain for us.

But now we are up and running, I can work full time on eComStation. Harmen van der Spek (a software PhD from Leiden University) and some members of his development team assist me with this.

Sorry for not posting messages or information before. The main reason for this is that personally I do not function well when there is criticism and negative feedback with sometimes a personal angle. I am trying to do whatever I can.

At this very moment I am working on a difficult problem: For one of the larger eComStation customers we developed a Chinese version. This version works perfectly fine, except for the fact that whenever an USB keyboard is used the system hangs as soon as the WPS should appear. Very annoying and strange issue.  I will keep you posted on this.

If you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact us at info@ecomstation.com or call us during office hours at +31 23 700 97 69

Best regards,
Joachim Benjamins

[ivan]

Joachim, regarding the USB keyboard. 

Is the problem with any USB keyboard or just a Chinese one?

If it is all USB keyboards then you have a big problem which may have nothing to do with the keyboard as such but how the USB stack interacts with the Chinese localisation.

If it is just a problem with a Chinese USB keyboard then you need to look at the way the keyboard communicates with the USB stack and look at the possibility of needing a conversion layer between USBKBD.SYS and KEYBOARD.DCP .

The other thing to look at is a different brand of Chinese USB keyboard.  At least that solved a similar problem for a friend in Thailand.

[eirik]

Joachim has a great point - let us try to make working on eCS/OS2 more fun by encouraging each other and providing constructive feedback.  Some of us, like me, are in the unfortunate situation that we have little to contribute but encouragement.  But at least, that is something.

Also, on the positive news: despite that the university where I work are becoming increasingly Windowized, my T410 manages well with eCS (2.1), NetDrive with the latest EWFS GUI, FireFox and ThunderBird, and Open Office 4.1.  I have disk access to the servers, my email client works well, and despite being Win-focused, the computer dept adheres to standards.  That makes things a lot easier.

For me, OS/2 (eCS) works well, and no plans for switching to Wint. One wish (among many I guess) - a working remote desktop for Win 2013 servers.  Keep up the good work!

[Doug Bissett]

At this very moment I am working on a difficult problem: For one of the larger eComStation customers we developed a Chinese version. This version works perfectly fine, except for the fact that whenever an USB keyboard is used the system hangs as soon as the WPS should appear. Very annoying and strange issue.  I will keep you posted on this.

I'll bet that that is the old startup conflict problem, and it has NOTHING AT ALL to do with USB, languages, or keyboards. That startup hang has been a problem since Warp3 was new. Last week, I spent about 6 hours adjusting the boot timing on my brother's machine to fix that exact problem. I finally found a combination that works, most of the time. I do wish that SOMEBODY would figure out why the file system becomes unavailable for a very short period, at the time that the WPS should be starting up. If something happens to try to access the file system at exactly the wrong time, it can't get the data, and that causes a hang. If you can cause a small delay, just before the WPS is about to start, you can probably get past the problem. Even slowing the machine speed can fix, or break, it. Sometimes, all it needs is to display the drivers as it starts up (ALT-F2).

Good luck...

[Fahrvenugen]

Joachim,

I for one want to thank you for continuing to work on eCS even when the situation became more difficult amid both company changes and user feedback/criticism.  I can understand how that would be difficult, and I am looking forward to the new version of eCS.

As for the pauses / crashes upon boot, I ran into something similar to what Doug talks about on a machine years ago (Warp 4 based), I don't recall exactly what it was but there was something I ended up putting in the startup/config.sys that caused it to pause for about 5 seconds, never had a problem booting again.  Unfortunately that machine is long gone or I'd check to see what it was I'd done.

[Pete]

Hi Joachim

A possible test for Dougs theory:-

Boot to a command line. If that works OK - and the keyboard functions - try to start pmshell from the command line.

If the keyboard does not function try a different brand of keyboard - might be worth checking that all USB drivers involved are installed correctly first.

Sometimes devices "designed for Windows" need to install software when installed in Windows due to a non-standard implementation of the USB device. Unlikely, but could that be the case with this keyboard?

My personal view on USB keyboards is that they are very useful and I have been using them for years - plugged into a PS/2 adapter and then into the PS/2 keyboard port :-)


Regards

Pete