IBM Faces Monopoly and Anti-Competition Charges

[btarunr]

IBM has been accused of monopoly and anti-competition practices with the mainframe market. A complaint of the same has been filed with the European Commission on Tuesday. T3, a small American supplier of mainframes who, in the past, dealt in IBM products, alleges the company the company to have abused its market-position and monopoly power in the industry.

IBM is accused of engaging in several anti-competitive offenses, that include the prevention of the sales of competing mainframe hardware products by making its operating system exclusive to its mainframe hardware. IBM is further accused of withholding patent licenses and certain intellectual property to the detriment of mainframe customers, according to a statement by T3. In the same statement, T3 says that it dealt with IBM mainframes in the past, but it took to selling its own products developed by Amdahl (now part of Fujitsu). An IBM spokesperson responded saying that the company is yet to see a complaint, and that it was inappropriate to comment on specifics relating thereto.

Source: ZDNet

[infrared]

*sigh* not another law-suit.

Although I suppose there is a case here, only allowing your software to run on your own hardware. Even apple have grown out of that!

[mdm-adph]

I swear... IBM's left-hand doesn't know what it's right-hand is doing.

On one side, they're incredibly supportive of free and open-source philosophy, even releasing their latest Desktop suite, Symphony, free on both Windows and Ubuntu (they even made a .DEB file for installing it directly on Ubuntu). They've always been a big supporter of Linux on the server-side, too. But they can be awfully closed-up about certain matters, even to the point of hurting themselves.

[Weer]

Maybe one hand has gone rogue and is punching and hurting the company while the other.. makes it happy.

[suraswami]

Who are these people? Jobless retards?

[Steevo]

Yes, lets take OS/400 the most stable OS inthe world, and allow people to find exploits, and render the 4+ years a good tech will have gone to school obsolete.

Now instead of a serious OS and server system that is stable enough to run in hospitals, airports, and other system that are, ohh, slightly critical for the world, lets allow some jerkoff to make a virus for it by forcing IBM to release certain parts of the code. So those 4' of books that you have to read, understand and memorise as just the basic part of the training are now going to be added to by another foot about new security procedures.

Good job.

[PCpraiser100]

Dammit, I think I found the common death of a company...bankrupt from lawyers

[wahdangun]

yet, another small company want to make big money

doesn't apple do this for year's

[Error 404]

Votekick: European Commision.

They're leading the front of attack on most larger companies nowadays.

[DrPepper]

Originally Posted by wahdangun

yet, another small company want to make big money

doesn't apple do this for year's

yep and look at them now.

[infrared]

Originally Posted by Steevo

Yes, lets take OS/400 the most stable OS inthe world, and allow people to find exploits, and render the 4+ years a good tech will have gone to school obsolete.

Now instead of a serious OS and server system that is stable enough to run in hospitals, airports, and other system that are, ohh, slightly critical for the world, lets allow some jerkoff to make a virus for it by forcing IBM to release certain parts of the code. So those 4' of books that you have to read, understand and memorise as just the basic part of the training are now going to be added to by another foot about new security procedures.

Good job.

Thanks steevo, I didn't think about it that way.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by Steevo

Yes, lets take OS/400 the most stable OS inthe world, and allow people to find exploits, and render the 4+ years a good tech will have gone to school obsolete.

Now instead of a serious OS and server system that is stable enough to run in hospitals, airports, and other system that are, ohh, slightly critical for the world, lets allow some jerkoff to make a virus for it by forcing IBM to release certain parts of the code. So those 4' of books that you have to read, understand and memorise as just the basic part of the training are now going to be added to by another foot about new security procedures.

Good job.

very good way of putting it. might not have been what they were aiming for but i'm sure the lawyers will put up a similar argument.

along the lines of this OS is not hack proof so if i wree to let the how-to of it working get out to other manuf it could leek how it works and then someone has control of 90% of the most important services in the US/the rest of the world

[niko084]

LOL IBM FTW...

I LOVE IBM... A big company that does a lot of good and doesn't push people around.

[Swansen]

woah woah woah, there are still mainframes in use??? How is this even an issue?? Does IBM even support mainframes anymore?? (probably a dumb question)

[niko084]

Originally Posted by Swansen

woah woah woah, there are still mainframes in use??? How is this even an issue?? Does IBM even support mainframes anymore?? (probably a dumb question)

It's what they have always done, and they are the best at it...
And yes mainframes will always be used, although the sizes will probably shrink slowly over time.

This whole mumbo jumbo about how your mini frame can out compute a mainframe doesn't mean much.. Mainframes are not about processing power.

[Woody112]

Originally Posted by btarunr

A complaint of the same has been filed with the European Commission on Tuesday.
Source: ZDNet

Some how after seeing what the EU is doing to Microsoft I have a feeling that the EU has their hands in on this one.
One hand in microsofts pocket and the other in IBM's

[Steevo]

Originally Posted by Swansen

woah woah woah, there are still mainframes in use??? How is this even an issue?? Does IBM even support mainframes anymore?? (probably a dumb question)

Yes, and this is the majority of their $$$$$


http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/


Every major corporation, goverment, school, hospital, airport, etc.... uses IBM hardware and software. So far as it being hack proof, no, it isn't. But it is the ONLY Operating System be certifed by the US goverment for high security data containment.


After reading most of the books we have for ours, litarally 4 feet tall, I understand the system to use a hardware layer virtual job, print, data, user que except the SYSOP/SECOF, and those are still limited to protection IBM put in place to prevent unauthourised access and changes.


They are by far more stable than any OS/hardware, more reliable, faster, more multi user supportive, printers.......


Imagine having millions of complex records, hundreds of printers, thousands of users, and that just scratches the surface. Ours, a very humble 220 model, handles all payroll, taxes, parts inventory for two stores with multiple vendors, equipment inventory for two stores multiple vendors, accounts reciavable, accounts payable, 7 printers at both locations, 30 users with 3-5 sessions each, vendor communications, backups, all sorts of reports it can print in short order, and it has all of 512MB of RAM and 24GB of RAID 1 storage. In the current configuration it can handle up to 70 users.

[ascstinger]

rofl.. wait just one moment here. How is refusing to sell your os to a different manufacturer ant-competitive. and if the customer doesn't want the ibm os, there seems to be at least 1 other manufacturer that they can take their money to. Something tells me T3 is just too lazy to develop their own software, or their software dept sucks.

the hell with the EU, what exactly do they do besides create bullshit lawsuits

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by ascstinger

rofl.. wait just one moment here. How is refusing to sell your os to a different manufacturer ant-competitive. and if the customer doesn't want the ibm os, there seems to be at least 1 other manufacturer that they can take their money to. Something tells me T3 is just too lazy to develop their own software, or their software dept sucks.

the hell with the EU, what exactly do they do besides create bullshit lawsuits

exactly their reason for being, to create bullshit lawsuits thus try to fatten their wallets and also their lobbyists., thank god i dont live there

[Darkrealms]

Originally Posted by Steevo

Yes, lets take OS/400 the most stable OS inthe world, and allow people to find exploits, and render the 4+ years a good tech will have gone to school obsolete.

Now instead of a serious OS and server system that is stable enough to run in hospitals, airports, and other system that are, ohh, slightly critical for the world, lets allow some jerkoff to make a virus for it by forcing IBM to release certain parts of the code. So those 4' of books that you have to read, understand and memorise as just the basic part of the training are now going to be added to by another foot about new security procedures.

Good job.

Originally Posted by Steevo

Yes, and this is the majority of their $$$$$


http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/i/


Every major corporation, goverment, school, hospital, airport, etc.... uses IBM hardware and software. So far as it being hack proof, no, it isn't. But it is the ONLY Operating System be certifed by the US goverment for high security data containment.


After reading most of the books we have for ours, litarally 4 feet tall, I understand the system to use a hardware layer virtual job, print, data, user que except the SYSOP/SECOF, and those are still limited to protection IBM put in place to prevent unauthourised access and changes.


They are by far more stable than any OS/hardware, more reliable, faster, more multi user supportive, printers.......


Imagine having millions of complex records, hundreds of printers, thousands of users, and that just scratches the surface. Ours, a very humble 220 model, handles all payroll, taxes, parts inventory for two stores with multiple vendors, equipment inventory for two stores multiple vendors, accounts reciavable, accounts payable, 7 printers at both locations, 30 users with 3-5 sessions each, vendor communications, backups, all sorts of reports it can print in short order, and it has all of 512MB of RAM and 24GB of RAID 1 storage. In the current configuration it can handle up to 70 users.

Thanks for the good points and "inside" experiences. We are using IBM servers but obviously on the Windows Server platforms.

I think if IBM developed it and IBM wants to sell thier package let them . . . There are soo many companies out there that use other products and other OS'.