It was a while ago that I read the book. OS2 was more stable at that point in time because not too much work had begun on Windows yet.

If I recall correctly, the big reason for the split was B Gates wanted something very graphical and processor intensive. 386s had just come out. One of the biggest advantages of the 386 over the 286, was that there were some very severe bugs in the 286. BG wanted to ignore the 286 and develop Windows for the 386 only.

He knew that if they tried to be backwards compatible with the 286 there would be hugh headaches. IBM found this out. Spending significant amount of time and code to be backwards compatible. The big exec at IBM didn't want to go back on his word. He had given a speech to a bunch of big IBM customers and told them that they wouldn't wast their money if they bought a bunch of 286s. At the time IBM was also a big PC hardware manufacturer also.

PF

>The result of the bickering was that IBM split the codebase and IBM got OS/2 and MS got WinNT Workstation, right?
>
>Though to contradict your statement of IBM's ineptness, OS/2 seemed to be the best most stable OS at the time. MS managed to win out through marketing and a better business strategy. Are there any details on how they managed to outmuscle IBM in getting computer vendors to preinstall Windows on new systems?