Could you please try the following code and let me know the result.
message (if ' ' = '' then 'not OK' else 'OK').
message (if ' ' > '' then 'OK' else 'not OK').
Tried it on windows xp OpenEdge 10.2A02 and 10.1A, 9.0A and 9.1A.
The code results to 'not OK' in all cases.