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How can we sense the pulse of OS/2-eCS Community on Social Network Tools ?

Started by miturbide, 2008.02.19, 17:30:16

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miturbide


I think the subject said it all.

For example I had been checking out orkut.com (Google) and I found OS/2 Community with 81 members and eComStation Community with 20 members.

There is a lot of people from Brazil, I even found Daniel Caetano and Mike Kaply there ;)

So, how do you think it is a good idea to sense the pulse of OS/2-eCS users on social networking tools ? how do you suggest to keep tracking of this communities ? Any other nice OS/2-eCS community arround?
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

Ben

Greetings.

There is a basic problem with getting the pulse of the OS/2-eCS community.

OS/2 users are non-typical, and distinct from the masses.

They tend to be much smarter than the average computer user, more aware of what's going on, and more concerned with privacy issues. Hence their choice of OS/2.

Hence, a very large number of us have problems with posting, (or getting involved with a community that requires), personal information display-and-distribution, that is open to the masses and regularly scanned by major corporations, and the private-data harvesters.

For example, most of us, (even here), are reluctant to use our real names.

Most of us use small, often private, networks for interaction... like the eCS IRC Network, for example, or the eComstation newsgroups which are privately owned and operated and not generally known to, or accessed by, the public at large. So you'll find only a very few of us in the big, data harvesting, privacy-violation-based, Windows founded, social-conditioning communities.

Of course, I'm not one of those weirdos... I'm normal  ;D

Saijin_Naib


miturbide


:D :D :D ... good one Ben. You really make me laugh.   :D :D :D
Martín Itúrbide
OS2World.com NewsMaster
Open Source Advocate

Skype - martiniturbide
Google Talk - martiniturbide@gmail.com

saborion2

Re: "For example I had been checking out orkut.com (Google) and I found OS/2 Community with 81 members and eComStation Community with 20 members.

There is a lot of people from Brazil, I even found Daniel Caetano and Mike Kaply there Wink

So, how do you think it is a good idea to sense the pulse of OS/2-eCS users on social networking tools ? how do you suggest to keep tracking of this communities ? Any other nice OS/2-eCS community around?"

Re: "Historical Users"

"OS/2 was widely used in Brazil government institutions. Banco do Brasil had a peak 10,000 machines running OS/2 Warp in the 90s. OS/2 continues to serve automated teller machines in the country.

OS/2 also was widely adopted by accounting professionals and auditing companies. In mid-90's native 32bit accounting software were well developed and serving corporate market.

OS/2 was used by radio presenter Howard Stern. He once had a 10 minute on-air rant about OS/2 vs Windows 95 and recommended OS/2. He also used OS/2 on his IBM 760CD laptop".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS/2

Question: So, from the above mentioned referenced article... just what happened with/to all the OS/2 Engineers in Brazil that helped to maintain the OS/2 Operating Systems that were used by the "Brazilian Government Institutions". "Banco do Brasil" et cetera et cetera; have they all been killed off; or, have they all died naturally.  :( :-X 8)!

RobertM

This is indeed an interesting dilemna... even getting accurate web statistics seems difficult, as many places that track such things have tracked OS/2 (since the 32bit stack) as some variant of BSD.


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Saijin_Naib

I've been identified as OSX while using OS/2 on some websites. Wtf :|

kim

Quote from: RobertM on 2008.02.20, 19:04:17
This is indeed an interesting dilemna... even getting accurate web statistics seems difficult, as many places that track such things have tracked OS/2 (since the 32bit stack) as some variant of BSD.

Yepp, and some tools that I've used earlier when making security scanning of networks identifies OS2 as Sun Solaris systems...

Also when it comes to the community; it has been said earlier and still valid; there are a lot of users that seldom take part of the online resources for OS2 such as for example OS2 World. Some mostly uses usenet groups and then other use nothing; the just happy with what they got and that is to have a system that just runs and runs on the hardware they got.

I never ever really had the stress about getting the latest hardware, rather I waited for a while to let the early adapters to take the first hits to figure out what worked and what worked not. I've never really been into game playing so; the little such Sim City was excellent for me and Tetris was enough.

Don't know if there is any kind of global statistics for OS representation; don't know if Alexa has this kind of information that they gather from websites.

saborion2

Re: "Don't know if there is any kind of global statistics for OS representation; don't know if Alexa has this kind of information that they gather from websites".

Since IBM has specifically stated in its "response to the 2nd petition letter to Open Source OS/2" that service offerings "continue to be available for customers who need ongoing support for OS/2"; perhaps, IBM (among others) may be in the best position to provide the data with regards to the population of the customers/potential customers needing ongoing support. Additionally, how about the formation of committee (comprising representatives from various countries) within the OS/2 World Foundation to specifically gather and provide the "statistical data" with regards to current OS/2 User/Developer Community Worldwide.  ;)   

kim

IBM won't have a clue of where to find OS2 users and companies using OS2... I mean as said earlier, try call IBM Sweden and they would point you to Swedish OS/2 User Group... and they done this the last 5 years at least. Doubt that even if IBM had this kind of information that they would release it...

Guess that the closest official statistics that we can gather might be from the visitors logs from the larger OS2 sites. About having group of people gathering or keeping touch with local users was and is one of founding ideas with OS2 World.

Ben

Quote from: Saijin_Naib on 2008.02.19, 20:48:56
So os/2 people are overly paranoid?  ???
Huh?

Privacy consciousness is not paranoia. And "overly" seems to have lost its way.

Allow me to reiterate...

My point was, we, (as OS/2 users), aren't out there in the major communities in the manner that most other computer users are, and it will be difficult to get a "pulse".

Subsequent replies to this thread make this clear, but in a round-about way using lots of words rather than a few.

Some of this is due to the fact that most of us, (as others have pointed out in this forum and elsewhere), are very old compared to the average computer user.


Quote from: miturbide on 2008.02.19, 21:19:56
:D :D :D... good one Ben. You really make me laugh. :D :D :D

As long as you got something out of it. ;)

Other's may get more.  :)

Unfortunately, some will get nothing.  :(

saborion2

Re: "Doubt that even if IBM had this kind of information that they would release it..."

Also, "Guess that the closest official statistics that we can gather might be from the visitors logs from the larger OS2 sites. About having group of people gathering or keeping touch with local users was and is one of founding ideas with OS2 World".

There can very well be quite a bit of public information on the web also; and, the below attach links to web site and videos were found to be quite interesting.
"Usage of eComStation and OS/2 Warp operating systems"

http://en.ecomstation.ru/solutions/?action=solutions

"Around the World with OS/2 - 1 of 2"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hlc9EpJB4ag

"Around the World with OS/2 - 2 of 2"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYKK3NpnuF4

Let's do some "statistics" from the above. The question is: How much has the "market" changed since these videos were shot.  8) !


RobertM

And another:

http://en.ecomstation.ru/solutions/?action=companies

On each of the lists, some are outdated unfortunately... the only one I can confirm on the list above is the first one (which is mine and my brother's company) though others seem to have been updated recently (denoted with a *).

-Robert


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Kirk's 5 Year Mission Continues at:
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saborion2

Uuummm... Very, very interesting one should think. The below attached article was stumbled upon earlier this evening  :) :

"From Microsoft Press ! (February 1997)"

"IBM's OS/2 INCREASES MARKETSHARE IN BANKING SECTOR"

"Dramatic Growth at National and Super regional Level, at Community Banks and in Branch Applications"

"AUSTIN, TX, July 23, 1996 . . . Over the last two years, IBM's OS/2* operating system has emerged as an industry leader in the retail banking arena, one of the most demanding industrial environments. Twenty of the top 30 U.S. commercial banks have made a significant investment in OS/2 with 19 of those running their branches on OS/2. According to Mentis Corporation, a leading research firm for the banking industry, OS/2 has increased its overall client operating system marketshare among large banks from nine percent in 1994 to a projected 25 percent in 1996. This compares to only seven percent for Windows NT** in 1994 and a projected nine percent in 1996.

In addition, according to Mentis Corporation, OS/2 has maintained over the past two years approximately one-third of the marketshare in all large U.S. banks for its server operating system, compared to the 13 percent held by Windows NT. Within the community banking sector, OS/2 marketshare for clients and servers has more than tripled, with Windows NT penetration declining dramatically.

As far as branch applications are concerned, IBM estimates that 80 percent of all newly installed Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) worldwide today run on OS/2 platforms and over 80 percent of all banking transactions worldwide today are processed by technology running on OS/2. New OS/2 banking installations and upgrade customers include Comerica Bank, First Union Bank, First Virginia Bank, and Trustmark National Bank. These and other banks are investing in OS/2 because it provides unparalleled multi-tasking, stability, scalability and flexibility, along with unmatched access to corporate data, corporate applications, and enterprise- wide networks...". Read the rest here:

http://seds.org/~spider/os2/ibmpr.html

Note carefully; "These and other banks are investing in OS/2 because it provides unparalleled multi-tasking, stability, scalability and flexibility, along with unmatched access to corporate data, corporate applications, and enterprise- wide networks..." Perhaps, just perhaps one of the main reasons IBM cannot Open Source OS/2 - the banking industry are heavily invested in OS/2.  ;)  ;)  ;)