BeOS Review

An infant with great potential, or even an adolescent system software, the BeOS can definitely go places, whether it will or not depends on the amount of third party software support it receives.   With a competitor like this, we should hope that Microsoft will begin to implement some of the BeOS' key features in their next major OS upgrade after 98.  We should also hope that Be will learn from Microsoft (yes, I said it) to improve their OS in a few categories as well.  Currently the hardware compatibility list for the Intel version of the BeOS is no where near acceptable, most BX motherboards will work with the BeOS however quite a few still don't.  The MVP3 chipset doesn't seem to agree with the OS either.  Not to mention the lack of support for virtually any 3D graphics accelerators or sound cards for that matter (the AWE64 is the only sound card supported by the OS).  Another huge disappointment would have to be the lack of any SCSI peripheral support in the current release candidate of the OS, which, along with the rest of the flaws mentioned, will have to be changed in future revisions before the final product ships otherwise we'll end up with a knocked up OS rather than a knock-out OS.  

We should keep our eyes on Be's little engine, we all know it can, let's see if it will...