And man were they expensive. $195 for OS/2 2.0. That's about $434 in 2024 dollars, and the PS/2 systems that ran it best started north of $2k if memory serves. No one outside of corporate and the biggest enthusiasts were shelling out that kind of money for "a better DOS than DOS" (cough Desqview cough) or "a better Windows (3.1) than Windows (3.1)" (irrelevant and not that impressiive imho).
Love them or hate them, Microsoft has always been good at hitting the 75th percentile, aka "good enough" and "cheap enough". They proved (conclusively) that customers will put up with a mountain of shit if you cost half of what your competitors do. Plus they knew how to make ISVs a lot of money too. IBM just couldn't get it's head out of it's ass, I mean the 1960s.
And for the record, I salivated over OS/2. I scored a beta of 2.0 when I was 14 off of a BBS associate. I had an IBM laser printer, IBM typewriters, an original IBM PC. I thought back then that IBM meant quality (and to be fair, it did).
But they didn't get it and Microsoft did. Windows 95 had pizzaz and hype, the CD had Weezer's Buddy Holly video (video!). They were working to get games running right under 95. They were courting all of the biggest application vendors. They were doing shit. IBM? Too busy being IBM.