Looking at several Web pages where discussion of operating systems, their relative merits, and histories were being discussed, I became aware that although IBM was criticized for failing to support it, OS/2 had nearly no detractors from a usability standpoint.

The Workplace Shell was an object oriented model, with many features still not incorporated into Windows XP or Vista. It made accomplishing many tasks simple for the user, and was instinctual, much like the interface of OS X.

Person after person recounts how much was done with so little in physical resources. It also was rock solid, with the blue screen of death rearing its ugly head only when hardware was faulty. Keep in mind that when this OS was starting to become popular, a megabyte of RAM cost around $100, and during its lifetime the price of memory was still nowhere near the commodity item it is today.

With so much bad press surrounding Microsoft for its attacks on the Open Software community, perhaps a sign of good faith by Microsoft would be the release of any liability for disclosure of source code by IBM, and the negation of any expected royalty payments for OS/2.

This would give both Microsoft and IBM some exposure in the press, and some bankable good will to be used at a later date.

It would also give the Open Source community a great basis for a solid operating system, with an interface easily understood by users of Windows.

MS could use this development of code as a basis for needed changes in current Windows, in a manner similar to the RedHat - Fedora business model. To see this, it is necessary to understand that much of the NT core has common code with OS/2.

Since this operating system is so frugal with memory, it could serve as the system on the One Laptop Per Child PC, and Microsoft would benefit 2 ways. It would not have to cripple a version of XP or Vista, with people complaining about those annoyances, and, it would still have a Windows - like user interface, which would get all those children ready to buy whatever version of Windows is available when they graduate to other hardware.

Tags: microsoft, ibm, os/2, workplace shell, olpc, xp, vista, os x, object oriented interface