Decline and Discontinuation
TopView sold below expectations from the start, with many potential users already satisfied with cheaper, less memory-intensive TSR task switchers like Ready, Spotlight, and Borland Sidekick who didn't need a multitasking environment. TopView ran in graphics mode (TOPVIEW /G), however, this was rarely used. By mid-1987, IBM began to shift focus away from TopView and was promoting the use of OS/2 to developers and end users alike. OS/2 1.0 was a pre-emptive multitasking, multithreading OS that allowed one real mode and multiple 16-bit protected mode sessions to run at the same time on the PC/AT based 80286 and provided as a DOS alternative announced in April 1987 and made available later that December. A graphical user interface (Presentation Manager) was added with OS/2 1.1 in October 1988. 1.1 could run with or without Presentation Manager as well as an embedded system with no screen, keyboard or mouse interface required. IBM officially stopped marketing the final release of TopView, version 1.12, on 3 July 1990. TopView's concept was carried forward by other DOS multitaskers, most notably Quarterdeck's DESQview, which retained TopView's user interface and many features, plus added more features such as support for the special features of the 80286, 80386 and compatible processors, and, with DESQview/X (released in June 1992), a true GUI interface running on DOS. A variety of similar programs to TopView were also available, including one from Dynamical Systems called Mondrian, which Microsoft bought in 1986 with the stated intention of implementing TopView API compatibility into Windows which never happened. Later in April 1992, IBM introduced OS/2 2.0 which included virtual 8086 mode and full 32-bit support of the Intel 80386 superseding even DESQview and other similar environments. OS/2 2.0 was a priority based preemptive multitasking multithreading OS including 32 levels of priority (from time critical to idle time) for the 386.
TopView requires IBM PC DOS versions 2.0 to 5.0 or MS-DOS 2.0 to 6.0, and will not run with later releases.
Key contributors to TopView included David Morrill (the "father of TopView" code-named "Orion" once the GLASS project was moved to Boca Raton), Dennis McKinley (tasking), Ross Cook (memory management), Bob Hobbs (TopView Toolkit) and Neal Whitten (product manager). Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Gordon Letwin and other key Microsoft executives accepted an invitation to IBM Boca Raton to see a special demonstration of TopView. Gates was disturbed that Windows did not have the tasking and windowing capabilities (i.e. overlapping windows, etc.) that TopView had. Gates witnessed TopView running multiple copies of the Microsoft BASIC interpreter running in windows (overlapping and side-by-side) in a multitasking fashion. This led to the eventual Microsoft purchase of Mondrian, a Windows requirement to do overlapping windows (as later introduced with Windows 2.0) and later the development of Windows NT (to do adequate multitasking) and its eventual release in July 1993. Much of the design requirements for Windows NT came out of the original joint development agreement that IBM had with Microsoft for the development of OS/2. Microsoft did not, however, have a JDA with IBM for the development of TopView.
Read more about this topic: IBM TopView
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