And it's only taken 30 years for someone to recognize that?
Besides, what possible point is there in arguing about this now? They're peripheral to mainstream computing now at best.
IBM accused of mainframe monopoly
Summary
A small US company has filed a complaint with the European Commission, accusing IBM of abusing its position in the European mainframe market.
Topics
A complaint alleging that IBM has abused its position in the European mainframe market was filed with the European Commission on Tuesday.
The complaint from T3, a small US supplier of mainframes, said IBM has "a history of abusing its monopoly power in the mainframe industry", according to a statement from T3.
IBM is accused of engaging in a range of anti-competitive actions, including "preventing the sales of competing mainframe hardware products by tying the sale of its operating system to its mainframe hardware". IBM is further accused of "withholding patent licenses and certain intellectual property to the detriment of mainframe customers".
In its statement, T3 said it sold IBM mainframes but then moved into selling its own products, the Liberty line of mainframes, first developed by Amdahl Corporation, which itself is now part of Fujitsu.
In 2007, US software maker Platform Solutions filed a complaint with the Commission, alleging that IBM abused market dominance by refusing to supply interface information for mainframe computers or to license others to use its software. The action was dropped when IBM acquired Platform Solutions in July 2008.
That move sparked fears from the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) that it would lead to IBM dominating the mainframe market.
CCIA president Ed Black said at the time that the move "sucks the life out of the [mainframe] market leaving little prospects for anything but complete domination by IBM".
An IBM spokesperson told ZDNet UK on Tuesday: "As IBM has not seen any complaint, it is inappropriate to comment on specifics relating thereto." ZDNet UK has sought comment from T3, but had not received any at the time of writing.
Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)
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ejhonda20th Jan 2009 -
Yes, mainframes are Peripheral
If by 'peripheral' you mean managing billions of transactions a day, petabytes of online disk storage, and the day-to-day back office operations of the largest companies in the world with security and reliability statistics unmatched by any other platform, then yes, I guess mainframes are 'peripheral'. Perhaps your definition of 'mainstream computing' refers to editing MS Word documents and checking out Facebook profiles.
eis520th Jan 2009 -
Well said!
1)
"If you can pick it up or step over it, it's not a computer."
2)
Those of us with mainframe experience (beyond the obligatory 6-weeks of COBOL in junior college most ant-mainframers have been exposed to) understand the truth of the matter. No other system can match the I/O capability of the mainframe. No other system has the reliability of the mainrame. No other system is as secure as the mainframe.
We run about 300 servers now, adding about 10-20 a month. We have one mainframe. We have 6 server techs, the mainframe has 1. We have 2-3 server outages a day. Have had no mainframe failures in the 8 years I've been here. Mean-time-to-failure on a mainframe is 25-30 years. Server disks crash regularly, our mainframe is Raid-5 and could be Raid-10 if we thought necessary. Windows servers die beyond 50% CPU, mainframes can run maxxed out withoug failing. Mainframe can run hundreds of virtual servers (if you're willing to use Linux instead of the MS crap.
3)
If IBM spends the time/effort/money to design good hardware and develop good software, why should they give it away to the competition? The software and hardware has hooks to let other companies develop competing packages and many do - lot of non-IBM disks, tape silos, printers out there, as well as various software to replace or augment IBM's OS.
If company X wants to compete, let them spend 100's of millions on R&D and come up with a competitive product. Amdahl made decent (cheaper) hardware but it was not as compatible as it should have been, so they couldn't survive and ended up bought out. Hitachi the same. None of them equal IBM.
BTW: IBM hardware/software was not always as good as it is today. I lived through the entire IBM product line since 1962 - hardware and software. It's good today because IBM spend the money to perfect it.
Let the competition go and do likewise.
steeleweed@...21st Jan 2009 -
Blah, Blah, Blah
There is no difference between the hardware on a mainframe and really beefy servers these days. So the big difference is the OS. Why host Linux on a mainframe? Because nobody likes OS390 or MVS or whatever they call it anymore. That OS is only good for running legacy COBOL crap. Other than that it's glorified virtual server. Good lord, talk about overkill.
Oh, talking about availability. The statistics are skewed. Ok...so you only have to IPL once every 10 years. Since everything is all on one box, it's not apples to apples. A single service (DB2, IMS or CICS region) is more like a server in the server world. And I know those things get bounced daily.
Nobody does new development in COBOL anymore because it takes to long and yields little in usability. You guys complain about the facebook generation. Well it's that generation that has learned how to use computers. You guys are the only ones from your generation that do. Who cares about the availability of a system, if the data is only available to a select few. The internet and all of the related technologies brought computing to the people.
They don't teach COBOL, JCL, VSAM or VTAM...cause nobody needs it.
bmonster21st Jan 2009 -
Sauce for the goose
If the allegations are substantiated then the law should be enforced on IBM as it has been on MS. Hopefully, this defendant will be considerably less insolent and defiant than the other has been.
John L. Ries20th Jan 2009 -
Good post John!
The problem goes far beyond MS. Antitrust law is simply not being enforced. The result is huge monopolies that are sucking the life out of the marketplace. They stifle innovation with their huge intellectual property portfolios. They export jobs offshore to the detriment of our domestic workforce. This is part of the problem that is sinking our economy. And once they get that big, if they stumble, they end up with welfare from the taxpayers since they are "too big to fail". They have systematically driven down working class wages while pushing executive compensation to the sky. The only reason this has been viable as long as it has is because it has been accompanied by ridiculously generous credit terms and now the credit markets are imploding and the party is over. The new administration needs to crack down on monopolies. ALL OF THEM!
George Mitchell20th Jan 2009 -
Apple needs same sauce on iGoose
IBM sells mainframes against compatible hardware from other vendors; it makes a proprietary OS for their hardware.
APPLE sell a proprietary HARDWARE and a proprietary OS. No clones allowed.
What law says that IBM has to make SOFTWARE for to run on NON-IBM hardware. The competitors cloned the HARDWARE, let them CLONE the software.
Brent R Brian21st Jan 2009 -
Antitrust law ...
"What law says that IBM has to make SOFTWARE for to run on NON-IBM hardware."
IF refusing to make software for non-IBM hardware can be demonstrated to be a means for IBM to passively enforce a monopoly on a certain category of technology, it then becomes illegal under antitrust law. Its as simple as that. And basically the defenders of these institutions try to pretend that antitrust law simply doesn't exist, shouldn't exist, or shouldn't be enforceable. But it does exist, is enforceable, and should be enforced, rigorously.George Mitchell21st Jan 2009 -
Apple hardware really dominates
On the PC side, their market share is pitiful. But, they are willing to keep it small so that they can control hardware and software compatibility and build a better product. If you do not like it you can buy any Intel box and put any other software, except OS X, on it. Or you can put Windows on your Mac.
On the iPod side, they built a better product which became dominant. But, you can put music from anywhere you want on your iPod. You can buy music from the iTunes store, but the majority of people do not.
jorjitop30th Jan 2009 -
are they kidding?
the mainframe competes with so many different machines, how could a mainframe monopoly be meaningful? Whats the current market share of mainframes versus 10 years ago?
Sounds like another crybaby that can't compete. T3 is probably being battered by huge arrays of cheap Linux boxes, not IBM. And a look over at Google confirms this.
albeit20th Jan 2009 -
RE: IBM accused of mainframe monopoly
Is this the same EU that loses private information of it citiziens on a daily basis...
Maybe someone should open an investagation into their monoply on BS excuses to go after american companies... hey wait our companies cannot compete on a direct basis of innovation so we will legislate that the bigger companies have to jump through hoops that the little guys dont...
Did the EU have a big batch of sour grapes this year.... or did whatever crawl up their ass finaly died????
dave@...20th Jan 2009 -
RE: IBM accused of mainframe monopoly
Why stop with Apple? Almost all high tech companies either produce proprietary equipment or software (or both). Why not remove all patients and rights? Make it THE LAW that there can be no further proprietary rights.
Guess what! Companies would immediately flourish making clones but almost immediately collapse because other companies would not be developing new technology.
eorussell@...21st Jan 2009 -
Rubbish
quote::Guess what! Companies would immediately flourish making clones but almost immediately collapse because other companies would not be developing new technology.
Guess what. The PC is almost ubiquitous because IBM published the specs for it as an open system, no patents, anyone could clone it. It was the closed proprietary hardware systems that died, need I mention Amiga.
tracy anne21st Jan 2009 -
They don't teach COBOL, JCL, VSAM or VTAM...cause nobody needs it.
Be careful what you say and/or wish for. No matter how much stuff gets migrated off mainframes every day, there is still a ton of stuff running on them all over the world. You'd be surprised. Take any long term member of the Fortune 500. OK, so maybe the flashy front end stuff is off running on a linux farm. I'd be willing to bet that their billing and payroll still run on a mainframe, maybe their customer data lives there too. Chances are that their automated system backups run there too, backing up everything from shared folders on your desktop PC to the linux boxes running the front end systems.
trybble121st Jan 2009
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