Happy Anniversary!!

by Barbara J. Britt

The Developer Connection News (and The Developer Connection for OS/2) is celebrating its first anniversary this issue. As Product Manager, I'd like review the past, while recognizing some of the IBMers whose efforts over the last 18 months have made The Developer Connection for OS/2 possible. I'd also like to share some of our plans for future.

The concept of the Developer Connection grew, as most good ideas do, from the difficulties of the past. Throughout the extraordinary development process that culminated in OS/2 2.0 in 1992, the necessity to distribute programming tools widely and economi cally became more and more obvious. The Betas and SDKs that made up the development environment were going to disappear when the shrink-wrap system and toolkit appeared on the store shelves. We thought that the development community, with whom we had grown quite close during the Beta effort, would like to continue this kind of "one-on-one" relationship with our development team. As we approached the ship date for OS/2 2.0, an "inversion" of the process for delivering development tools was proposed - instead of stocking store shelves in the hope of attracting developers, we were going to sign them up in advance and make sure they had what they needed. The idea for a magazine-like subscription for programming tools was born! And the technology of CD-ROM delivery was tailor made for it! Jay Tunkel, our lead architect, laid out the principles behind The Developer Connection for OS/2 and its accompanying Developer Connection News - a newsletter written by our developers, with a minimum of hype and a maximum of information.

Coincidentally, at around this time, the Developer Assistance Program was experimenting with delivering CD-ROMs filled with tools and utilities to attendees at OS/2 conferences and seminars. This CD-ROM, called the PDK, enabled us to try out many of the concepts of the Developer Connection and fine-tune our content goals and delivery processes. As the last shipment of the PDK went out in February, 1993, it was gracefully retired. But from the experience of the PDK, we found out that customers liked the idea of a subscription service for tools. So in February, the team moved full force toward building, marketing, and delivering Volume 1 of The Developer Connection for OS/2. Target delivery - August 24, 1993.

As Product Manager, I was removing road blocks and encouraging the team to make this aggressive schedule. And, what a team it was: David Kenner was the the technical team lead, Merilee Lawrence was the planner, Stacey Miller was editor of The Developer Connection News, and Suzanne Gagnon was responsible for marketing. In addition, Brian Black, our art director, was working hard on the visuals that are The Developer Connection. But, this product would not have happened without all the talent behind this core group - the developers, testers, builders, and others.

Developer Connection Team

In the past year, The Developer Connection for OS/2 has been recognized by our customers as the best way, not only to get programming tools, but also to get information on the future of OS/2. So, please, if your subscription is up, don't forget to re-subscribe.

Over the next year, we're going to have a lot more of the good stuff for you. Some of this good stuff will include significant software products such as VisualAge and an entry-level C++ compiler. And, let's not forget Taligent, OpenDoc, and OS/2 for PowerPC. The Developer Connection for OS/2 will continue to be the single deliverable of tools that support any function in the base OS/2 operating system. As functions such as OpenDoc and Objects are added to the base, we will continue to add the tools to support them on The Developer Connection for OS/2.

We also are looking at consolidating other toolkits, like the Device Driver Kit, with The Developer Connection. Our goal is to make all of these tools available at a lower cost than if you purchased them separately. We also will soon be providing a new offering to subscribers - a way to purchase compilers and other high-end tools directly from an encrypted CD-ROM.

But this is your product; it is shaped and molded by your suggestions. So, please make yourselves heard. Talk to us via one of our electronic forums or drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you!

Barbara J. Britt

Product Manager

Reprint Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation