IBM Says So Long to OS/2

IBM this week has made official what many have suspected for years - OS/2 will be discontinued at the end of 2005. Company officials pointed to the fact that no new version of the operating system has been released in nine years, and are suggesting customers move to Linux instead of sticking with the aging OS.

IBM released the first version of OS/2 in April 1987, but it never took off due to a lack of applications compared with Microsoft's Windows. According to a notice on the IBM Web site, support for the operating system will end on December 31. After that date, support will only come through a paid service contract. Any products associated with OS/2 will be discontinued a week earlier, on December 23.