Interesting two-part article on OS/2 from the point of view of an insider at the time :-
www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/23/why_os ... _part_one/
www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/26/os2_final_fail/
He gives a picture of utter disconnection between different divisions of IBM, and utter failure to appreciate the direction in which IT was moving.
OS/2 was good, I ran it for several years, and it could have become the standard for PCs if IBM's top management had been as bright as its own developers.
One thing puzzles me, the recent discussions on OS/2 (being its 25th anniversary) all complain how expensive it was. I do not recall that. In fact I remember at one point at least (in the UK) it being cheaper tham DOS + Windows 3.1, even the version with a copy of Windows built into it (which ran in a VM), yet people still bought Windows. OS/2 did like memory though - at £100 per Mb!).
They marketed that version as "OS/2 for Windows" - as if OS/2 were just some front end instead of a OS built from the ground up. It was really "Windows for OS/2". I despaired at that description. At the time, all sorts of software was being sold "for Windows" (eg "WordPerfect-for-Windows") and I felt that if things had come to such a pass that nothing in IT could be sold unless it had "For Windows" somewhere on it (I'm looking at a sticker on my laptop right now), then OS/2 was doomed.
It has taken so far 25 years for the "Windows" gloss even to begin to fade for Joe Sixpack.