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Date:	Fri, 11 Sep 1998 16:11:55 EST
From:	SBT Information Systems <sbtaus@ibm.net >
Reply-To:
To:	32bits@sbt.net.au
Subject:	OS/2 News, Views and PRs 25-7-97

OS/2 News, Views and PRs 25-7-97

in this issue:
table of contents is back
censorship ? in the Australian
more censorship ? in the Australian
OS/2 WARP FM InfoFlash-FLASH 31
VisualAge for Java demo d/l
more on VoiceType
reader's help wanted

Dr Graham Norton has sent the following letter to the Australian, however,
I don't believe it was published:

====================================================================
The Editor,
Computers & Technology Supplement
The Australian Newspaper

July 17, 1997

Dear Sir

"Solutions for a small planet" a great catch cry from IBM but they don't
offer solutions for a small business! Voice recognition software is here
but has a long way to go before it is accepted and used effortlessly by the
vast majority. It requires an intense amount of effort and time,
dedication in fact, but as I found, persistence has its rewards.

In 1995, after considerable research into the technology and various
software choices, I purchased Voice Type Dictation for OS/2 V1.1. It was in
those days the best solution for my specialist medical practice. The WIN
3.1 version (there was no WIN 95 version) was not a patch on the OS/2
version. At that time I was and still am, computer savvy, but not by any
means a programmer - an educated and appreciative end user. I selected an
application rather than an Operating system. It took 3 months of dedicated
dictation, before it was working well. Over the next 6 months I added a
specialist medical vocabulary - Pathology UK English and as well came to
learn of a remarkable add on software programme called "Speech Advantage
Medical for OS/2" . This is a sophisticated data base, mail merge, word
processor template and print and fax manger, that quite simply merges the
name and address of the addressee, as well as the name and details of the
patient /client, into the letter and then prints and faxes on letterhead
paper, all in the one operation. Here OS/2 and its multithreading and
multitasking came into its own and by the middle of 1996, I was creating
and printing and faxing up to 20 letters, reports and X-ray requests a day
and sending them out within minutes of creation! To the best of my
knowledge I am the only person in Australia with this unique set up. It had
cost me more than $3000.00 but I have been more than repaid it in terms of
savings in secretarial services.

Then with the release of OS/2 version 4, VTD was included in the OS and
moreover was now "software driven" rather than needing a specialised Voice
Adaptor sound card. Buy OS/2 Version 4 for $295.00 and one purchased a
superb 32 bit OS and VTD included which was faster than the older version
although one still had to dictate using "isolated speech". I upgraded my
laptop to a Pentium and added more RAM. Excitement and enthusiasm gave way
to frustration and increasing anger. In their wisdom IBM Australia decided
to release only the USA English version rather than the previous UK English
V1.1. The only humorous side of this decision was that a "full stop" (.)
was spoken as "period"! Thankfully I am a neurologist rather than a
gynaecologist - think about it!

The more serious and fundamental issue was that all the specialist
vocabularies (medical, legal, journalism) that Australian users had
purchased were now useless as the UK English versions were not compatible
with the US English version. No amount of E-mail or telephone calls to
the IBM customer service department has ever produced a satisfactory reply!
I was acknowledged once. A sympathetic employee admitted that this was an
unforeseen problem which IBM was addressing! That was almost twelve months
ago. Eventually I attended a conference in the USA in April 1997 and
purchased for $700.00 a US English "Emergency Medicine" vocabulary. I have
for sale, a UK English pathology vocabulary if anyone wants it!

The saga of the specialised vocabularies has now paled into insignificance
within the past few months. The reason: IBM has decided that voice
recognition software is not really what "business" wants! At least that is
corporate business! No this is something that is more attractive to home
users, the small office and thus the much heralded release of its
"continuous speech recognition" software slated for release perhaps early
1998, is to be available only on Windows 95/NT! I sit here dictating and
using software that is not so much obsolete, but will be discontinued for
my operating system. To add insult to injury, I believe that the specialist
vocabularies have all been dropped! I have "Certificates of Upgrade" for
all the VTD and vocabulary software, but they are not worth the holograms
with which they are adorned. The corporate network is where IBM is headed!
Java and the Internet!

Voice recognition technology is 'before its time" and I agree that it will
not be taken up by busy directors of companies, not until it is faster and
almost 100% accurate. For the same reason it will not be taken up by the
average WIN 95 user! In reality it will be a toy an expensive "game" that
will rapidly loose its appeal. But if indeed, IBM feels that we will soon
be a connected world then all users are equal as we sit in front of our PC
or NC! Talking to it will come and if OS/2 is to be an Internet platform,
then don't drop VTD.

You could be forgiven for thinking that over the past 2 years, I had become
extremely angry and unforgiving, but no! Indeed so pleased and proud was I
of my setup, that I demonstrated it to various medical and health groups
and after one E-mail to IBM praising them for the technology, they sent out
a journalist and a story and photos were taken for publication on my use of
VTD! They have never actually acknowledged my efforts by a return E-mail!
The story of course never made it into any publication as at about the same
time, the decision to drop VTD for OS/2 was made!

Sadly for me the future is that I move from a great OS to a platform that
will do what I want it to, WIN NT and the creative genius behind Speech
Advantage Medical - spurned by IBM, is now furiously programming a WIN NT
version. I wait with anticipation and eagerness yet again. Solutions for my
small business dont come from IBM but I expect the WIN NT version of VTD to
be given to me free! A small ask.

Yours faithfully
Dr Graham Norton FRACP
Neurologist

Smart Road Specialist Centre
113 Smart Road
Modbury SA 5092
e mail norto06@ibm.net
====================================================================
Whilst Dr Norton's letter didNOT make the paper, the Australian had an
almost-a-full-page interview with IBM Oz software boss, Gerhard Rumpff:

We learn that NT has scalabilty problems. However, he didn't offer an
alternative.

"IBM's software unit has put heavy emphasis on NT Server as a platform for
which it will develop"

"Companies must have the will, the foresight and the courage to be a
leader. It is only if they do this today that they will harvest benefits
tomorrow."

It seems Australian's censor struck again, as there was not *one* reference
to IBM's OS/2.
====================================================================
from Jon Saxton

This is the very first article which I have ever prepared using IBM's
VoiceType dictation which comes with OS/2 version 4.0. I have been a user
of OS/2 4.0 since the very first day it was released here in the United
States but It has taken me until now to get my computer to understand me.
If that seems like an extraordinarily long time there is a reason for it.
You see, although I live in the United States, I am Australian and the
North American version of VoiceType simply does not understand what I
say. I could not get past the very first word in the VoiceType enrolment
process without faking an American accent and that is not something which
I do very well, nor do I particularly want to speak in a manner which is
unnatural for me. Eventually I just gave and stopped trying to use
VoiceType at all.

Recently I needed to demonstrate some voice enabled software to a client
so it became imperative that I revisit the issue and attempt to make my
computer understand me. I obtained the UK version of OS/2 and installed
that on a spare partition on my hard disc. The difference was nothing
short of astonishing. The entire dictation enrolment process took just
about an hour of my time in to complete. In contrast I was never able to
come anywhere near completing the first 50 using the North American
edition of OS/2. The VoiceType developers within IBM had frequently told
me that the UK version is a much better fit than the US version to the
Australian accent but I really had no idea just how true that assertion
was until now. My days of struggle are past. I can see VoiceType being a
useful tool from now on rather than a mere curiosity.

For some reason which I utterly fail to understand, the only version of
OS/2 available in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa is the North
American one and yet English as spoken in each of those countries follows
British speech patterns and spellings. The result of this brilliant and
sensitive marketing strategy is frustration for VoiceType users in those
countries; their computers don't understand them and can't spell either.

Users in Canada face a somewhat different problem. The Canadian accent
is so similar to that of the northern United States that the North
American version of VoiceType does an excellent job of voice recognition.
However Canadian spellings generally follow the British patterns so
VoiceType is not without its problems in North America.

At this early stage in my usage of VoiceType dictation I cannot say much
more about it other than that it seems to work very well for me now that
I have a proper English version. I suggest to all English-speaking OS/2
users in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa that they contact their
local IBM distributor and ask why it is not possible to purchase a
version of OS/2 in their native language in their own country. I would be
very interested to learn how IBM answers that question.

--
Jon Saxton OS/2 software developer
U.S. Agent for Triton Technologies International Ltd
NYPC OS/2 Developers' SIG coordinator

//Jon, IBM's Ian Morphet gave some of the reasons at the OS/2 SIG, namely
to do with the US version being the earliest version to release, with other
languages always being later, and service packs being version specific.//
====================================================================
From: "Hansen, Paul"

Due to Uni requirements I have to load Win '95 on my machine at home as
well as Linux. Can you help with a few questions please.

1) I have read that Boot manager will only allow a max of 3 bootable
partitions to be listed, is this true and if so is there a way around
it. I currently have Win 3.11 on C:, OS/2 on E:\ and will be installing
another HDD so I can install Win '95 and Linux. So it looks like I may
need to have 4 items on the boot manager.

2) I have also been told that if I try to install Win '95 on a machine
that has OS/2 already installed then Win '95 will search for the OS/2
boot sectors and delete them. Is this true? Also I have been reliably
informed that IBM have released a document that details how to avoid
these problems, are you aware of were I can access this document?

Thanks in advance,

Paul Hansen

Paul,

I have never installed Win95, nor have I ever used it. With a little luck,
I'll never have to - so my know-how may be limited here, maybe some
reader's can help ?
With WinDOS 3.x, the WinDOS install would DISABLE the BootManager,
following the install, either DOS or OS/2 FDISK could reset the active
partition to the BM, thus re-enabling BM (& OS/2). It was more of an end
user nuisance thing that MS seem to do to inconvienience end users.
As Win95 is largely still DOS based, I'd suspect the same ploy is used.
(after all, micro soft does mean small and limp)

********************************************************************

I wuz rwong:

"in the current issue of Moz, "
Actually, it was in "MultiCAD".

====================================================================
VisualAge for Java is here today
Get your copy of the
'best visual designer on the planet'
(Nicholas Petreley, InfoWorld Electric, April 1997 )

download a trial copy from:
http://www.software.ibm.com/ad/vajava/

shrink=warapped product due in any day....
====================================================================
_______________________________________________________________

OS/2 WARP FM Transmitting 100% Pure Java Energy
_______________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

VOLUME 2 - OS/2 WARP FM InfoFlash - FLASH 31
http://www.software.ibm.com/os/warp/warpfm
_________________________________________________________________________

IBM Offers New Upgrade Services for OS/2 Customers

Announces Formation of Rapid Deployment Team
AUSTIN, July 15, 1997...IBM today announced the availability of a
new services offering aimed at helping existing OS/2* customers
upgrade to the latest versions of OS/2 Warp. Upgrading to OS/2 Warp
4 and OS/2 Warp Server gives customers the feature set they need to
exploit the benefits of network computing.

The Rapid Deployment Team (RDT), a group of highly skilled OS/2 lab
engineers, will work together with IBM Global Services
professionals and selected BESTeam members to provide OS/2
customers around the world with the specialized talent and skills
they need to make the upgrade process a smooth one. The RDT offers
customized services in the areas of planning, application
development, integration, testing, piloting and deployment. Using
the services of the team saves customers time and money during the
upgrade process.

"Upgrading to the latest versions of OS/2 Warp is the first step
towards network computing," said Mike Lawrie, general manager, IBM
Personal Software Products (PSP) division. "The Rapid Deployment
Team, working as an extension of IBM Global Services and partnering
with IBM BESTeam members, will provide customers with a level of
OS/2 Warp expertise unmatched anywhere else in the industry."

IBM is encouraging users to migrate to the latest versions of OS/2
Warp, which are equipped for network computing, for a number of
reasons. The current versions of OS/2 Warp:

úOffer network computing features like support for Netscape
Navigator**, Java** 1.1, URLs and FTP servers represented as icons
and folders on the desktop, a Lotus Notes mail client and the
latest version of TCP/IP. Not only do customers have access to the
latest network computing technologies, they still retain the
capability to run their traditional OS/2 applications.

úAre fully supported and maintained by IBM, giving OS/2 Warp 4 and
OS/2 Warp Server users a broad range of technical support.
OS/2 Warp 4 and OS/2 Warp Server users:
úAre eligible for the Software Advantage Program. OS/2 Warp users
enrolled in the Software Advantage Program, who purchased an
eligible upgrade protection offering, can utilize Software Choice,
IBM's new electronic software distribution program that offers
product features and fixes via the World Wide Web or CD-ROM.

"Although there are clear benefits gained by upgrading to the
latest version of OS/2 Warp, IS Executives we interview are
frustrated with the time and resource costs involved in upgrading
large numbers of desktop and server platforms.

"IBM has made a very smart and necessary move by providing their
enterprise customers with access to a team of engineers skilled in
quickly and effectively implementing the upgrade," said Robert
Sakakeeny, (Aberdeen Group's Director of Field Research). "For
customers who are on the fence about upgrading, this new services
offering from IBM may give them the added push they need."

New Service Opportunities for IBM BESTeam Members
The Rapid Deployment Team is leveraging its partners and providing
new sales and service opportunities to members of BESTeam, IBM's
worldwide award-winning channel partner program for system and
network integrators, value-added resellers and consultants. The
RDT will generate demand; provide leads, enablement tools,
education and support; and develop ongoing communication with the
business partners. All business partners who are brought into
accounts with the RDT are OS/2 Warp 4 and OS/2 Warp Server certi
fied.

"This new services offering is not only good for OS/2 customers,
but for IBM BESTeam members as well," said Richard Spurlock, vice
president, Starfire Engineering and Technologies, Inc., a large
OS/2 business partner. "By making these services available, IBM is
demonstrating its commitment to OS/2 customers which makes upgrades
to current and future PSP products a solid option. This
partnership drives more business for my company and provides
excellent solutions for the OS/2 customer."

Additional Services Offered by IBM's Worldwide Technical Projects
Business Unit
The services offered by the RDT are complementary to those of IBM's
Worldwide Technical Project business unit. This business unit
serves as a catalyst to OS/2* Warp customers in the design and
development of custom, mission-critical, business applications
based on network computing technologies. The newly formed unit
has recently completed Java applets for CERA Bank of Belgium, and
RBG of Germany and trained INSERTO AG, Switzerland's largest OS/2
Warp reseller.

OS/2 customers interested in working with the Rapid Deployment Team
should work through their IBM representative or business partner to
obtain further information on the program. Pricing for services is
determined on a per customer basis.

Oberon Software Releases Java Programmers Toolkit

July 7, 1997, Mankato, MN...Oberon Software today released its
first Java based toolkit. "This builds on everything we have
learned over the years about multi-threaded programming under
OS/2." said Oberon founder and President Brady Flowers. "We know
that developers will find many good uses for this toolkit and we
ourselves will be using it extensively in the months to come as we
begin to release a range of new Java based applications and
applets."

Building on its strength as a supplier of terminal emulation and
telecom software, Oberon has included in the new toolkit Java
implementations for ANSI, VT100, and Telnet terminal emulations and
ZModem file transfers as well as a number of Java AWT extensions
and utility classes such as circular spin buttons, Regular
Expression matching, CRC calculations, and Internet e-mail (SMTP)
utility classes.

The library contains an extensive collection of classes for
scientific function plotting which, in addition to being attractive
to scientists, engineers, educators and students, can also be used
by anyone needing to display, size, and rotate three dimensional
images.

Also included in the toolkit are OS/2 native classes for accessing
the serial port, HLLAPI programming, and a REXX interface which
allows a developer to add REXX scripting support to Java
applications. Oberon Software plans to release cross platform versi
ons of these native classes in a forthcoming release of the toolkit
later this year.

Oberon Software allows the toolkit runtime package to be freely
distributed without royalty and has announced an introductory price
for the programmer's portion of the toolkit or $39.95. All
interested parties are invited to contact Oberon Software for more
information. Oberon Software can be reached by phone at
507-388-7001, their web page at *http://www.OberonSoftware.com, or
by mail at Oberon Software, Inc., 1405 E. Main St., Mankato, MN
56001, USA.

Oberon Software has been developing OS/2 software and providing
OS/2 related services since 1988. More than just a specialty, OS/2
related products and services are Oberon Software's only business.
Oberon OS/2 products include FSHL - Oberon Software's Alternative
Command Line Executive, The Oberon Personal VoiceMail Assistant,
and the Commpak/2 Programmer's Toolkit for creating
telecommunications routines under OS/2. In addition, Oberon
Software has developed unique, OS/2 based solutions for a number of
major corporations in the banking and communication industries.

Press Points

InfoWorld Electric - IBM to form services group to ease OS/2
migration by Ed Scannell, July 14 This short on-line piece gave
early notice of IBM's announcement of its new services group that
will focus on version to version OS/2 migrations. The new group,
known as the rapid deployment team (RPD), will work on site at
companies guiding corporate customers from planning to final
implementation.

Computer Reseller News - IBM puts Java spin on OS/2, July 14
The page 78 article notes that the latest OS/2 product
announcements include an open beta of the latest Java development
kit making the platform more attractive to developers and
availability of the Remote Access Server improvements for better
connectivity. The performance benchmarks that indicated
applications would run 30% faster were also mentioned.

Competitive Press Points
ZDNet - NT Lies by Ed Bott
This amusing article by an NT expert, located at
www4.zdnet.com/pccpomp/features/fea0797/nt/welcome.html, takes an
experienced and often critical look at statements that Microsoft
and others have made about NT. The ten "lies" cover topics such as
C2 Security, use for mission critical application, ease of upgrades
and the zero admin kit.

Copyright IBM Corporation 1997 All Rights Reserved
_________________________________________________________________________

OS/2 Warp 10th Anniversary 1987 - 1997
Personal computing to network computing...and beyond
_________________________________________________________________________

--------------------------------------------------------------------
an unamed reader suggested *why* mailing disk might be a better alternative
than uploading:

I would have thought it would have taken less time
to upload it electronically than copy to a disk, locate an envelope, find
the stamp and walk to the post box. Perhaps he needed the exercise?

that I can not argue with.
====================================================================
tip/2:
click both mouse buttons on an editor or a VIO window to paste at cursor

====================================================================

Voytek Eymont
SBT Information Systems Pty Ltd - Distributor of OS/2 software
fax 61-2 9310-1118 ph 61-2 9310-1214
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~sbt
sbtaus@ibm.net

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