Re: Timing is off..
OS/2 1.2 was in 1991-ish. I took a programming (night) class on it, shortly before Windows 3.0 released.
From the article: "OS/2 was a joint development project taken on by IBM and Microsoft back in the 1980s and was regarded as the future by evangelists of the time. Things turned sour as sales of Windows 3.0 took off ".
I'd like to add some history to that, VERY relevant to today.
At that time Windows 2.x was all "2D and FLATTY" (like some so-called "modern" windows versions are today). And, so was OS/2 until version 1.2. But then, OS/2 1.2 'Presentation Manager' added full color support [requiring VGA as I recall] and 3D Skeuomorphic appearance to all of the various 'control' windows (like buttons and checkboxes and list boxes and so on) and of course that intuitively understandable GUI we all know and love from the Windowx 3.x days. It was a design based on ease of use and a transition from text-based interfaces normally found on the PC.
IBM wanted OS/2 to be synomymous with PS/2, however, like a high-end OS for their high-end PC. They were VERY angry about "the clones", essentially driving them out of the low-end PC market. unfortunately this meant that NOBODY could buy OS/2 for a clone - you could ONLY buy it for a PS/2, unless the PC maker had "an OEM version" of OS/2 for their line of PCs. Good luck with that.
Enter Windows 3.0 which was a marketing success because it TARGETED THE MASSES, ran well (enough) on non-standard PC configurations, and had that (much covetred) 3D SKEUOMORPHIC APPEARANCE. It was TRULY SUPERIOR to EVERYTHING at that time, except maybe for OS/2, which Microsoft ALSO wrote.
IBM blew it because of their STUPID marketing of OS/2 + PS/2. Microsoft WON because they did what people WANTED, i.e. a 3D Skeuomorphic multi-tasking GUI add-on that ran on existing MS-DOS machines [and was still compatible with old MS-DOS programs].
(but of course NOWADAYS you have MS turning into something WORSE than what IBM was back then... and NOT listening to customer wants, and instead "millenial PHONE-Y FEELS")