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Why BeOS fails in the corporate environment

By Lexx Core in Lexx Core's Diary
Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 08:57:03 PM EST
Tags: BeOS, Be Inc, oggfrog, haha, epic fail, corporate, environment (all tags)

BeOS was a nice OS, but why did it fail in the corporate environment? I will write and tell you why. Most don't understand these things so this will be a series of diaries on the subject when I find the free time to write more.


BeOS was a nice try at attempting to rip off the best Amiga features and put them on a BeBox or Mac or later Intel PC after Apple screwed Be Inc but not releasing specs for PowerMacs and G3 and up PowerPC processors to port BeOS to those platforms. Later Apple wanted to buy Be Inc for BeOS but bought out Next and Steve Jobs instead to get the BSD Unix based NextOS as Mac OS X later.

I know something about failure, so I'll tell you.

Uh yeah this reads a bit like the Why OS/2 failed in the corporate environment diary because most failed OSes lacked the same features and suffered the same failures. But modern operating systems should learn from them to get better.

#1 Limited to what systems it could run on.

Due to Apple screwing Be Inc the BeOS was limited to what platforms it could run on. The BeBox and Geekport was nice but too expensive and hardware was not profitable so BeOS was ported to the PowerMac platform until Apple refused to give Be Inc the specs to newer Macs and PowerPC chips. So Be Inc did a Next and ported BeOS to Intel PCs, and both suffered the same fate as Intel PC owners did not want their OS but Windows instead or maybe Linux.
Yeah Linux helped kill BeOS as it was more open and portable to other systems. Apple helped kill BeOS as well by refusing to give it the technical details it needs for porting to PowerMacs. Even the Amiga had a larger marketshare and Commodore went bankrupt and sold Amiga to many different companies. I think Palm bought out BeOS and sold it to some other company and then HP bought out Palm and made PalmOS as WebOS and then dumped the WebOS tablets for $99 on the market.

#2 Lack of server software.

Uh really, what server software? Not much. BeOS was designed for multimedia and not business servers. A mistake that HakuOS should fix by porting SAMBA and other things to HakuOS so it is useful for business as BeOS is dead now without new updates.
If BeOS had server software and a server edition it would have Be Inc still in business with a nice market of a BeOS blade server array that costs less than Windows Server, Linux, or Mac OS X servers because of the lower overhead of the BeOS operating system.

#3 Lack of development software.

Give me a break you have C/C++ compilers, lucky to have Python or Java, and maybe Free Pascal. Ask really nice and MDC will give you Zoolib support for gcc C++ compilers so OggFrog will work on BeOS.
Where is the Visual BASIC, the Borland compilers? A true corporate enterprise wants enterprise and commercial compiler languages and not the open sores ones.

 #4 Lack of network support protocols or hard to configure.

You are lucky to have TCP/IP but IP6 support is a kludge and might not work. No protocols for Novell Netware, AppleTalk, NFS, SAMBA or anything else. If you want to share files on your network set up an FTP server and use a FTP client to share files with BeOS.

#5 Lack of modern business applications.

Hahahahahaha what business applications? Be Inc dropped the ball here. At least MDC and company did Spellswell so that other programs could have a spell checker as many word processors for BeOS lacked it.
Even Apple suffered when the Macintosh was marketed towards the creative content market and not the business market. I remember back in 1985 the college computer club I was in having a debate with the Mac guy (Who owned a Lisa and called it a Macintosh XL) that Macs aren't business machines. He got mad and said "them's fighting words!" and I asked him to name at least twelve business applications for the Mac. He did Excel, MacCharlie, MacPaint, MacBASIC, uh uh, well more on the way. BeOS was that way as well multimedia and creative content. At least with Mac OS X Apple got more business savvy and added in stuff like server software and got a few business apps ported to it.

#6 No 64 bit mode to take advantage of 64 bit hardware.

Windows and Linux went 64 bit, BeOS never did. If it had BeOS would run like a rocket next to Windows and Linux. Spellswell in 64 bit would be awesome but it did not happen so corporations rejected it.

#7 Not scaleable and not portable to other platforms.

I think BeOS had multi processor support not sure about dual core or hyperthreading. But it does not do ARM or Alpha or SPARC, but it did do PowerPC and Intel X86 systems at Pentium 4 and below.

Maybe BeOS can be run via an emulator like BOCHS to run on the other platforms? But it will run dog slow. Even AmigaDOS/AmigaOS runs fast in UAE emulation in other systems as a Motorola 68K OS. I had hoped VirtualBOX could run it but it didn't.

Well at least there is the BeBits Intel BeOS archive out there, MDC was the best developer and supporter of BeOS and OggFrog should be ported to it by 2017 - 2021 some day. Then it will have one more reason to use it should HakuOS not get finished.

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Poll
Best use of BeOS
o Amiga emulator 100%
o MAME emulator 100%
o Paint program 0%
o Multimedia OS 100%
o Spellswell host 100%
o Oggfrog testing 100%
o Runs on 601 PowerMacs 100%
o Runs on old crappy WINTEL boxes 100%
o FTP server 0%
o Running old BeOS programs when too lazy to download HakuOS 100%
o BBS software 100%
o An OS that viruses cannot infect because BeOS has no active viruses out there 100%
o ATM software 0%
o WIPO 0%

Votes: 1
Results | Other Polls

Related Links
o Lexx Core's Diary


Display: Sort:
Why BeOS fails in the corporate environment | 10 comments (10 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Your Assbugers is showing $ (none / 1) (#1)
by schlouse on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 09:07:35 PM EST



Turkey vultures shitting on your head (none / 1) (#2)
by Nimey on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 10:01:35 PM EST

the bits of digested offal dribbling into your mouth.
--
Never mind, it was just the dog cumming -- jandev
You Sir, are an Ignorant Motherfucker. -- Crawford
I am arguably too manic to do that. -- Crawford
I already fuck my mother -- trane
Nimey is right -- Blastard
i am in complete agreement with Nimey -- i am a pretty big deal

BeOS was probably the best end-user desktop (none / 0) (#3)
by tdillo on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 10:10:16 PM EST

OS on the planet but then fucking Jean-Louis Gassée got a big-head and thought his shit didn't stink and at the last minute was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Palm got a hold of it for nothing and ripped out what they liked, tossed the rest and Gassée was promoted into obscurity.

Today a pathetic bunch of nerd-virgins regularly gather to hump a dead corpse with the gay moniker of Haiku.

Not as bad a fail as 3D Realms but damn close.

I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to go fuck yourself.

The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

RAISES HAND (none / 0) (#4)
by tdillo on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 10:16:39 PM EST

HEY LEXX!

Do you think you can write;

"Why Microsoft Windows fails in the corporate environment"?

I know you can, because you're special.

I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to go fuck yourself.

The stories and information posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact.

Computers are like gay (none / 0) (#6)
by channel on Fri Sep 23, 2011 at 11:13:57 PM EST

and stuff

first it's french (none / 0) (#8)
by Del Griffith on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 02:21:47 AM EST

And nobody runs Frenchy software.  Next it couldn't fucking print.  Good luck selling something that even a commodore 64 could fucking do but your multthisthat OS of the future couldn't even achieve printing ascii pr0n...

Also it had zero pedigree, really what are you going to rely on?  Some shit a Frenchie cooked up on some PowerPC bingefest reminisc of the PINK project, or BSD Unix tried and true for over 30 years?  Something that the DoD, CIA, NSA uses?  Or ... some Frenchy commie pinko thing that can't even motherfucking print.

It's no surprise they took OPENSTEP, updated the BSD from 4.3 to 4.4 ported it to the PowerPC did some VM for MacOS 8 and pooped it out as OS X Server 1.0 at a mere $599 ... A bargain for a commercially viable UNIX.

I'm almost tempted to see if I can score a B&W PowerPC g3 mac so I can enjoy OS X 1.0 days.

almost.

-------
I...I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. Because I'm the real article. What you see is what you get. - Me


ZooLib works great on BeOS (none / 1) (#9)
by Zombie Jesus Christ on Sat Sep 24, 2011 at 11:58:00 PM EST

I intend to support Ogg Frog on BeOS and Haiku.  And sometime soon I'm going to release a new version of Spellswell for Haiku and BeOS.

ZooLib's principal developer Andy Green was an active BeOS developer.  Much of ZooLib's UI design was influenced by the BeOS application kit.  However he decided in the end that having a separate thread per window was not such a great idea; some other BeOS developers felt the same.  So Andy has been refactoring the UI to have it all run in the same thread.

--
Mike Crawford for Clark County Commissioner
District 1 North County
mike@communard.org

Paid for by The Communard Party of Washington State


Why BeOS fails in the corporate environment | 10 comments (10 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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