I’ve recently had the chance to ask Joachim Benjamins of Mensys about the state of eComStation, their involvement with the product and where it fits in this mordern world of Linux and Windows operating systems. Here is the interview in full. Enjoy.

1. TheNerd: What is Mensys and how are you involved?

Joachim: Mensys started out as a company that saw the lack of OS/2 specific knowledge and product availability as an opportunity to start a mailorder firm to satisfy that demand. I have been working here since 1995, and have seen the company grow and diversify.

2. TheNerd: What is eComStation and how does it relate to OS/2?

Joachim: eComStation is an OEM distribution of OS/2. As such, it is basically OS/2 with patches applied and all sorts of enhancements to make it run on current hardware. The main reason for this product is to support people (and companies) that need or want to run OS/2 on non-ancient computers.

3. TheNerd: How does Mensys fit in with Serenity Systems and eComStation?

Joachim: Mensys got in touch with Serenity Systems as soon as they (SSI) got the IBM OEM contract for OS/2. We were actively involved with OS/2 so we knew what was going on in the ‘OS/2 world’. eComStation is the name that was given to the OEM version of OS/2, as part of the deal with IBM was that the product was not allowed to be called “OS/2″.

4. TheNerd: When do you anticipate that eCS 2.0 will go GA?

Joachim: We have worked really hard to fix the last bugs and were able to release eComStation 2.0 RC6 at Warpstock Europe 2008. After RC6 there will be a final RC7. which needs to get some wide testing, and we anticipate that the GA version should be ready early next year. Of course, we are aware that this is really late – but I once read that serious delays make you a ‘big developer’ *

* With Android’s delay, Google is officially a big software developer

5. TheNerd: How many developers actively work on eCS and what are they currently working on?

Joachim: We have several developers working on various parts of the operating system, like ACPI and other important low-level drivers, we co-fund the development of UniAud (audio subsystem), a lot of volunteers work on translating and maintaining the NLV (national language versions) of eComStation up to date. The official development team consists of 74 people at this moment, however not all of them are equally active of course. (http://ewiki.ecomstation.nl/eDG)

6. TheNerd: Will there be following versions of eCS shortly after 2.0 is released? i.e. 2.01, 2.02, 2.03 etc…

Joachim: No doubt there will be updates required to the 2.0 GA version and it makes sense to release these as new versions, when enough of them have been collected. Our primary concern is getting the localized versions released when eComStation 2.0 English is ready though.

7. TheNerd: Who do you see as the main customers using eCS these days?

Joachim: We see an increase in the amount of corporate users, as it seems more and more clear that eComStation is the only viable way to obtain an OS/2 license. These customers are rather happy with the ability to install on modern machines and are returning for more licenses. We also offer quite extensive support for some custom requirements to these larger accounts. Despite this, the largest group of customers is still formed by the endusers and computer-enthousiasts.

8. TheNerd: In your opinion, what do you see as the benefits and short falls of eComStation in today’s market that is flooded with Windows and Linux?

Joachim: There’s a couple of main benefits in my view:

• Once used to the WPS and it’s merits, you will find it hard to find a similar way of working on any other desktop system.
• The lack of viri and other malware makes it good for surfing and emailing, with the latest versions of Firefox and Thunderbird readily available, although the lack of an up to date Flash player can be a problem at certain websites. Luckily the latter may change soon…
• eComStation provides excellent backward compatibility to OS/2 and as such supports old and even very old OS/2 applications, for corporate users this can be very important.
• performance: eComStation is really performing well on relatively modest hardware.

The short falls in my opinion are:

• lack of new ‘native’ applications, although there is a lot of applications that can be (and are) ported from Linux. Paul Smedley is doing an excellent job of keeping some important applications current, like the Apache webserver, MySQL database and other mainstream applications. Have a look here for a complete list.
• there is currently no multiuser capability for the desktop. Third party applications are available to enable this though.
• no support for Windows applications like MS Office, but OpenOffice.org is available even in the current release to provide at least some document compatibility.
• eComStation really isn’t meant for multimedia applications, although it can play DVD movies and MP3 music.

9. TheNerd: In the future will eCS development remain partially focused on the end user market or will it be focused more and more on the enterprise/corporate markets?

Joachim: This will probably always be a mixture between demand from corporate users and wishes from the enduser market.

10. TheNerd: What do you envision as the future of eComStation?

Joachim: I think eComStation will keep serving a certain niche-market for corporate users and it will remain a viable platform for many users who want a computer to simply work. We keep working on improving the browsing experience and to remain a useful platform for doing every day work.

11. TheNerd: Do you have anything else you would like to add?

Joachim: We are very grateful for the patience of everyone while we’re working on the last issues of eComStation 2.0. Of course, we want to thank all volunteers who keep helping to make this product possible in the first place!

Thanks very much to Joachim for is time spent answering my questions. And for journalistic integrity I do run a small business that is a Mensys reseller and I have been selling eComStation related software for the past 2 and a half years.

So I was bored the other night and decided to get my copy of eComStation RC4 up and running and make a short screencast. I also added some music to make the viewing a little more pleasant. The list time I created a video of eComStation it ended up on the official eComStation website. I’ll send another email to the resellers mailing list this time and see if they are interested in posting it to their site again. There are a couple of mistakes that got in there but I was too lazy to fix them so you’ll see the top of an Windows Live Messenger sign-in notification and a preview of a minimized window (Vista thing). Feel free to comment here or on YouTube.

I sent this announcement to a bunch of eComStation related site and hopefully it gets picked up here and there.

Hello eComStation World!

I would like to let you all know that today I have launched a new eComStation software website known as eCSWare.org. This site is a place where members will be able to upload and download eCS related software. There are many categories ranging from system and developer tools to themes and icon sets.

The site is brand new and is seeking new members and contributers. There have already been some files uploaded but I am sure there are a great many useful pieces of software that need a place to live. Currently the site is set to allow a max upload of 100 megabytes but if you want to host something bigger contact me and I we can arrange to host the file.

My hopes for this site are to create a service that is complimentary to other eCS related services and websites already in existance and to work with these resources to create a better overall eComStation community. See you there!

Dennis d’Entremont (a.k.a TheNerd)
http://www.ecsware.org
http://www.ecomstation.ca