Editing Workplace OS (section)

====Demos and business reorganization====
At Comdex in late 1992, the team flew in and assembled a private demonstration based on last-minute downloads to replace corrupted files and one hour of sleep. The presentation was so well received that the prototype was put on the trade show floor on Thursday, as the first public demonstration of the IBM Microkernel-based system running OS/2, DOS, 16-bit Windows, and UNIX applications.<ref name="OWCPE book"/>{{rp|4–5}}<ref name="n2" group=lower-alpha/><ref name="WorkplaceMicrokernelandOS"/> In 1992, IBM persuaded Taligent to migrate the Taligent OS from its internally developed microkernel named Opus, onto the IBM Microkernel.<ref name="Half an operating system">{{cite web | title=Half an operating system: The triumph and tragedy of OS/2 | date=November 24, 2013 | first=Jeremy | last=Reimer | publisher=Ars Technica | url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/half-an-operating-system-the-triumph-and-tragedy-of-os2/5/ | access-date=February 12, 2019}}</ref><ref name="Inside Taligent Technology">{{cite book |first1=Sean |last1=Cotter | first2=Mike | last2=Potel |url=http://www.wildcrest.com/Potel/Portfolio/InsideTaligentTechnology/WW11.htm |title=Inside Taligent Technology |publisher=Addison-Wesley |date=1995 | isbn=0-201-40970-4 | oclc=1072525751 | access-date=February 10, 2019}}</ref>{{rp|xiii}}<ref name="Why did Taligent fail">{{cite web | title=Why did Taligent fail? | url=https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Taligent-fail | access-date=January 31, 2019}}</ref> Ostensibly, this would have allowed Taligent's operating system (implemented as a Workplace OS personality) to execute side-by-side with DOS and OS/2 operating system personalities.<ref name="Transforming Your Business">{{cite book | title=Transforming Your Business With Object Technology | publisher=IBM | date=November 1993 | location=Austin, TX | url=https://archive.org/details/IBMTaligent/ | page=15 | access-date=February 9, 2019}}</ref>{{rp|14–15}}

In 1993, ''InfoWorld'' reported that Jim Cannavino "has gone around the company and developer support for a plan to merge all of the company's computing platforms—[[IBM_System/390#ES/9000|ES/9000]], AS/400, RS/6000, and [[PS/2]]—around a single set of technologies, namely the PowerPC microprocessor, the Workplace OS operating system, and the Taligent object model, along with a series of open standards for cross-platform development, network interoperability, etc."<ref name="Infoworld Nov 15, 1993"/>{{rp|5}} On June 30, 1993, a presentation was given at the Boca Programming Center by Larry Loucks, IBM Fellow and VP of Software Architecture of the Personal Software Products (PSP) Division.<ref name="OWCPE book"/>{{rp|17}}

{{quote box | width=25% | align=right | quote=We have not closed discussion on [Mac OS support]. We're talking with Apple about including the Macintosh OS as one of the personalities in the microkernel. | author=—Lois Dimpfel, IBM's Director of Personal Operating Systems, November 1993<ref name="Dimpfel"/>}}
By 1993, IBM reportedly planned two packages of Workplace OS, based on personality dominance: one based on the OS/2 Workplace Shell<ref name="OS/2 PPC"/> and another based upon the UNIX Common Desktop Environment (CDE).<ref name="Windows NT and Workplace OS"/> IBM and Apple were speaking about the possibility of a Mac OS personality.<ref name="Dimpfel"/>

By January 1994, the IBM Power Personal Systems Division had still not yet begun testing its PowerPC hardware with any of its three intended launch operating systems: definitely AIX and [[Windows NT]], and hopefully also Workplace OS.<ref name="Apple, IBM"/> Software demonstrations showed limited personality support, with the dominant one being the OS/2 Workplace Shell desktop, and the DOS and UNIX personalities achieving only fullscreen text mode support with crude hotkey switching between the environments.<ref name="Windows NT and Workplace OS"/> ''Byte'' reported that the multiple personality support promised in Workplace OS's conceptual ambitions was more straightforward, foundational, and robust than that of the already-shipping Windows NT. The magazine said "IBM is pursuing multiple personalities, while Microsoft appears to be discarding them" while conceding that "it's easier to create a robust plan than a working operating system with robust implementations of multiple personalities".<ref name="Windows NT and Workplace OS"/>

In 1994, the industry was reportedly shifting away from monolithic development and even application suites, toward object-oriented, component-based, crossplatform, application frameworks.<ref name="Industry turning to components">{{cite magazine | magazine=ComputerWorld | first1=Ed | last1=Scannell | first2=William | last2=Brandel | title=Industry turning to components | page=1 | date=April 11, 1994 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j7EPRo-7juEC&pg=PA14 | access-date=February 13, 2019}}</ref>

By 1995, Workplace OS was becoming notable for its many and repeated launch delays, with IBM described as being inconsistent and "wishy washy" with dates. This left IBM's own PowerPC hardware products without a mainstream operating system, forcing the company to at least consider the rival Windows NT.<ref name="IBM ponders NT bundle">{{cite magazine | magazine=[[InfoWorld]] | date=June 5, 1995 | first=Ed | last=Scannell | title=IBM ponders NT bundle for PowerPC line | page=35 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wjoEAAAAMBAJ&dq=IBM+ponders&pg=PA35 | access-date=February 8, 2019}}</ref><ref name="too little, too late"/> In April 1994, ''Byte'' reported that under lead architect Paul Giangarra,<ref name="Windows NT and Workplace OS"/> IBM had staffed more than "400 people working to bring [Workplace OS] up on Power Personal hardware".<ref name="Apple, IBM"/>

In May 1994, the RISC Systems software division publicly announced IBM's first attempt to even study the feasibility of converting AIX into a Workplace OS personality, which the company had been publicly promising since the beginning. One IBM Research Fellow led a team of fewer than ten, to identify and address the problem. The team defined the AIX personality problem as being the fundamentally incompatible [[endianness|byte ordering]] between the big-endian AIX and the [[little-endian]] Workplace OS. This problem is endemic, because though the PowerPC CPU and Workplace OS can perform in either mode,<ref name="Life After Maximum Entropy"/> endianness is a systemwide configuration set once at boot time only; and Workplace OS favors OS/2 which comes from the little-endian Intel [[x86]] architecture. After seven months of silence on the issue, IBM announced in January 1995 that the intractable endianness problem had resulted in the total abandonment of the flagship plan for an AIX personality.<ref name="WorkplaceMicrokernelandOS"/>{{rp|19}}

In 1994, a proposal was made to reimplement OS/400 as a Workplace OS personality. This came at a point where the port of OS/400 to PowerPC was close to completion, but work to add 64-bit addressing and multiuser support to the IBM Microkernel had only begun. [[IBM Rochester]] ruled out delaying the PowerPC port to wait for Workplace OS to catch up, preferring a plan to incorporate the IBM Microkernel into the OS/400 [[IBM i#SLIC|SLIC]] when it was ready, allowing Workplace OS personalities to run on top of OS/400. By late 1994, as Workplace OS became increasingly focused on OS/2, the Workplace OS team proposed a new plan known as "Harmony" — which would replace OS/400 by adding a compatibility layer to Workplace OS, and requiring new applications to target OS/2 APIs. This proposal was poorly received by IBM Rochester, who withdrew all support for Workplace OS soon after.<ref>{{cite book| title=Inside the AS/400, Second Edition| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5DoPAAAACAAJ| isbn=978-1882419661| author=Frank G. Soltis| year=1997| publisher=Duke Press}}</ref>

In late 1994, as Workplace OS approached its first beta version, IBM referred to the beta product as "OS/2 for the PowerPC".<ref name="OWCPE book"/>{{rp|1}}<ref name="Just Good Old OS/2">{{cite web | title=Workplace OS/2: Just Good Old OS/2... For the PowerPC! | publisher=IBM | first1=Scott | last1=Winters | first2=Jeri | last2=Dube | url=http://www.edm2.com/index.php/Workplace_OS/2:_Just_Good_Old_OS/2…_For_the_PowerPC! | access-date=March 5, 2019}}</ref> As the project's first deliverable product, this first beta was released to select developers on the Power Series 440 in December 1994.<ref name="OS/2 for PowerPC Tidbits">{{cite web | title=OS/2 for PowerPC Tidbits | publisher=OS/2 Museum | date=November 16, 2012 | first=Michal | last=Necasek | url=http://www.os2museum.com/wp/os2-for-powerpc-tidbits/ | access-date=February 5, 2019}}</ref> A second beta was released in 1995.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}} By 1995, IBM had shipped two different releases of an application sampler CD for the beta OS.<ref name="DSN Issue 18">{{cite magazine | magazine=Developer Support News | date=November 22, 1995 | issue=18 | title=Developer Support News | url=https://public.dhe.ibm.com/rs6000/developer/library/dsnews/dsn5r.asc | access-date=February 6, 2019}}</ref>