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Compuware Brings IBM to Antitrust Court
pcs305 writes "
According to a news article at Yahoo, Compuware is accusing IBM of stealing code and copying Compuware manuals. They also accuse IBM of being a monopoly in the mainframe market and of anti-competitive behaviour.
"
Well being a mainframe programmer, and on top of that, being an employee of Compuware, I know that in many shops, source code is included with the product to allow the client to make modifications to suit their own unique environment. In addition to that, IBM Global Services maintain the data centers where a lot of these applications are housed so they could easily gotten their hands on any applicable source code. Don't think of these applications like you would personal application on your home PC. Lisences can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and with that price often comes the ability to alter code to meet specifications. In order to do that Source code must be provided.
I still find it interesting that only a few years ago the rumors were flying that IBM may possibly purchase Compuware. Who knows how much truth there is to those rumors. We may not have the clout that IBM has but I know our CEO to be a much more personalble individual that ALWAYS stands up for what he believes in.
Sad as it sounds, this case doesn't have the same level of interest as a Microsoft case.
Granted, IBM may well dominate in the market, but I think the case that they say that they didn't want to lower costs and then IBM entered the software market shows just how silly this case is. IBM was likely willing to work with them, but not willing to keep the prices where they were just to lose market share.
I guess we'll see how this pans out, but I bet there will be a settlement within 6 months and not a peep out of Compuware again.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
Rather unfortunate. Of course, the article is scant on details, but on the face of it it just seems that IBM delivered what customers wanted, and their competitors waffled. mmmmmm free market.
As for the copying, I sure hope nobody posts any opinions, because there isn't enough information here to even form one about that question.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
"The Compuware suit says Armonk, New York-based IBM uses its massive Global Services arm, the world's largest computer consultancy, to steer customers to its own products even when products made by other software vendors may be more suitable."
How is this somehow wrong? This is called "sales" in the real world. Sales people specialize in getting potential customers to use their product even "when products made by other software vendors may be more suitable", it's what they're paid to do. Yes, IBM may have a large sales department, and yes, maybe they do try to get people to buy their products even when a competitor's products might work better, but this the nature of sales, and is hardly anti-competitive.
Who would have guessed?!
Can anyone name a large tech company that isn't being sued at the moment?
Maybe we can change the BIG BLUE IBM to an IBM logo that looks like a Borg Cube?
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
future antitrusts complaints :
Kodak
Standard Oil
AT&T (if they still exists)
#include "coucou.h"
There's still a mainframe market?
Just the cost of switching to another OS for the mainframe, not to mention if you wanted to switch hardware, would be outrageous. Like the article says not to many companies besides Microsoft have such a hold.
Peter Karmanos is probably just upset because his company is going down the tubes right in the middle of building a huge new world HQ in Detroit and they need some loot to finish the project.
mainframe windows... just the sound of it makes me want to cry.
Since we are on the topic of mainframes. Does anyone know about the MVS OS made by IBM used to run on mainframes? I think it might also be called the 390/OS. I have seen it on a few sites describing different operating systems but couldn't find any information on it. If anyone knows abou it please post or link it here. Thanks.
this got modded up for taking a cheap shot at an obviously superior operating system?! how pathetic.
I wonder if this damning evidence was the result of a moron or by some employee pissed off cause he was forced to rip someone elses sh!t.
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What is the sound of this sentence?
No way! They support Linux and bring out those "Peace-love-linux" ads, don't they?
;-)
doesn't look like the comment was modded up... some people post at +1 and +2 depending on their karma level. calm down and think before you post, please.
But... who is this IBM?
for all concerned imperial subjects to write our beloved Emperor, HENGIST DUVAL, and draw His attention to this blatant abuse and ask him to outlaw all IBM operations in Imperial Space.
I mean, how many companies became big by being nice?
p.
They're in trouble with the SEC for shadey accounting practices. The stock took a dip, but seems to be holding. Unlike the Enron fiasco, they seem to have actual products though.
They switched buisiness models from a somewhat "boxed product" to a more service oriented structure. Typical number juggling issues probably.
Get a life!
For years IBM stayed well out of the mainframe database tools market, instead it was dominated by tools from Platinum (now CA, I believe), BMC, Compuware and others. To be realistic, you couldn't really run DB2 effectively without some of these tools.
Then all of a sudden IBM announces that they are going to begin selling competing tools (not bundled, but separately priced products) and the 3rd party vendors were screaming.
Why? Yes, they would have cause to be unhappy about the new competition, but one would think that their products would be technically superior in the short term (having been around for 10 years) and too well-entrenched in many shops to be easily surplanted.
Well, it actually turns out that some of these products actually didn't do much themselves. They were basically fancy front ends to code that IBM supplied with DB2 that wasn't entirely easy to access (only programmatically). We are not talking just basic funtionality here, were talking enhanced processing. IBM discovers this, and realizes that these vendors are really riding IBM's gravy train (and anyone who has ever looked at mainframe software costs will understand how much these vendors charge for a 'front-end'). So now IBM separates that code from DB2 and ships it (and their own front end) as a separate product. What does that mean for a 3rd party vendor? That if you want to use their product, you also have to have the equivalent IBM product installed. No brainer, really.
As far as I'm concerned, the 3rd party vendors deserve to get shafted here. I've seen how much they charge - and they couldn't even be bothered to write a decent tool that could ever possibly compete with an IBM supplied one...
Anyway, that's the story as I heard it..... YMMV.
What do they hope to gain from having someone telling IBM "you're evil" every time they violate antitrust laws, without the power to do anything else?
Oh, wait, IBM didn't put as much money into the governments as Microsoft...
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
do you understand the meaning of "ignorant"
obviously you aren't much of a reading comprehension person. the fact was that the parent was not modded up because he or she posts at that level.
isn't it past your bedtime, anyway? or is the whole middle school intellect just an act?
I'm getting a Dell!!!
Wow, what a surreal experience.... It just seems to me I'm back in the early eithies! Cool, I'm young again! :-)
Either that or HP marketing needs a new server badly cause when I tried clicking on it.. well.. nada... Their web server wouldn't even respond.
Slightly embarassing methinks...
Do you not watch TV or are you just not from the US? Watch for the commercials any weekend network programming to see them. For some reason, they appear durring a lot of sports. Guess the NBA SCREAMS mainframes. They have the funny one with the PHB looking for the servers and the geek saves them a bundle, and my favorite, the basketball team series with the star player Linux! The team consists of Mainframe, Middleware, and a few other guys too, so IBM is getting the word out. "Whats this?" "Triangle"
All joking aside, mainframes kick ass. Having seen (but not used :( ) one about a year ago, and the raw power it contains, it's truly something to be reckoned with. And the best part is they were running Linux via virtual machine on it. What more could a geek want!
I can see it now. Microsoft monopoly bad. IBM monololy bad. *sprinkle Linux into IBM* IBM MONOPOLY GOOD! SLASHJUNKIE SMASH!Mainframe Linux... Makes me want to use Solaris.
people should concentrate on suing MS, IBM already had enough of this trouble.
So you've seen one! Wow! But not used one?
Hey! Mod this up as insightful and interesting.
You dork! Come back when you have something interesting to say.
Would any of the moderators like to inform me why THIS looks to be mass moderated by the admins? Although I understand that it will lead to /. loosing more money, any abuse of the moderation system that goes ignored will lead to further abuse of the moderation system. Please read it over, and please, any AC's who come accross this, post this message in any further articles.
A subscribed Meta-moderator/Moderator afraid of having his moderation privilages completely removed.
Speaking as someone who has sat in the consol operator's seat and run jobs on one, it's as fun as can be. Learning the commands is the easy part. Learning the job flow and what to do when a job abends, now that's tough. It takes a lot more than people think to sit at the consol and run the mainframe.
They have the funny one with the PHB looking for the servers and the geek saves them a bundle, and my favorite, the basketball team series with the star player Linux! The team consists of Mainframe, Middleware, and a few other guys too, so IBM is getting the word out. "Whats this?" "Triangle"
In real life, Linux would be much more of a Dinkey Simpkins. Hmm.. Nobody here probably knows who that is.
but some slashbots seem to really believe that.
It's clear that IBM has a monopoly in the mainframe market, or at least something close to it. You can deduce this simply by looking at their pricing policies.
If you buy a mainframe then it often comes with say six CPUs, of which only one is activated. If you pay IBM some extra subscription money they will send an engineer round to activate the second CPU, or up to all six depending on how much you pay. It costs them almost nothing to do this, and it would cost nothing extra to simply have all six enabled when the machine leaves the factory, but IBM charges extra for it.
You can consider this as market segmentation - selling the same product to different parts of the market and charging different prices, so as to squeeze the most out of each consumer. If there were plenty of competition in the market, then IBM would need to sell mainframes with the best price/performance possible and would ship with six CPUs by default, at a price close to the manufacturing cost. The fact that they can get away with this pricing scheme shows they have considerable market power, if not an outright monopoly.
A more positive way of looking at the situation is that the cost of a mainframe reflects less the manufacturing costs (marginal cost), and more the R&D effort that went into desigining it or the expense of building the factory (fixed costs). In this case IBM's charging different prices, despite the marginal cost to them being no different, is just like Novell charging different prices for a 10-client Netware licence and a 100-client licence. So IBM has a monopoly on that particular mainframe design in the same way Novell has a monopoly on Netware. This is still not ideal for the consumer, but it's often considered a necessary evil to provide incentive to invest in new designs.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Well, lots of PHB's/execs watch sports (especially golf, but the NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL are also popular... not sure how many watch Arena Football... ;o). Who else buys the $2000/game courtside seats (besides celebrities like Spike Lee, Jack Nicholson, and Billy Crystal)?
It has nothing todo with this article, which means its an advertisement. Such an action calls in to question the validity(sp?) of the AC's post. I suggest he be modded down.
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What is the sound of this sentence?
Well, Cosmo runs WinNT 3.51 and Excel on a Cray supercomputer in Sneakers. (It was the only really surreal computer-related thing in the movie, apart of the widget they were handling, of course. The rest of the movie was somewhat more credible =)
(Of course, maybe he had a PC by the desk and the supercomputer was there for corporate use or something...)
Windows. Blaaaaah, I wanna cry!!! They obviously have a crap-o-matic in Microshit. There's no other explanation to that big chunk of shit they're releasing.
You know nothing about Linux or Solaris you dipshit!
What happens if a non-IBM person activates the other processors. Now that hard and software support can be completely unbundled and even passed away from IBM - can they stop a customer from upgrading their system?
The most obvious argument for stealing the source code is that IBM has the same bugs and limitations as our software.
As for our CEO standing up for what he believes in, I'd prefer to think our current COO (Queen of the Temps) is pushing him around with the Greek Firings. I guess I prefer to think of him as spineless than a jerk and bad businessman.
I imagine that any self respecting country would have some kind of indigenous dino maker. Let's see. Germany? Nope. UK? Nope. Similar pages can be found for France. Bully for Germany and Japan for at least trying, but it looks like the US kicks ass in this field. I suppose that you can charge alot when you make something others have a hard time keeping up with.
We shall see the merits of the case.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I used to work for compuware...but not in the mainframe field.... :)
Anyhow...don't you have contract with compuware that disallow you to talk about anything regarding compuware?
Since I don't have a contract anymore....Compuware suck
What happens if a non-IBM person activates the other processors. Now that hard and software support can be completely unbundled and even passed away from IBM - can they stop a customer from upgrading their system?
What happens is if a component fails, and needs replacing, they cannot call IBM to get the replacement part, without forking over *loads* of money, as all guarantees and warranties become void.. resulting in downtime that goes on for a lot longer than would be wanted..
However much a support contract costs, that has to be measured in how effective that contract is.
There is something to be said for knowing that your machine will be back up and running in the time it takes the support tech to drop the parts into the suitcase, fly out, and replace said part, and reconfigure.
If the hardware has been tampered with the support contract goes out the window.
Is the 'saving' in tampering really worth the loss of peace of mind? Especially if you are in a business that needs a mainframe?
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
I have faith in the Justice Department to appropriately prosecute and punish the guilty in this case!
Monopoly in the mainframe market? If the other (now mostly dead) mainframe companies would have focused on technology, instead of becoming the 'next IBM', they may not have died. Look at what Getronics did with the Wang VS mainframe - cut R&D, stopped marketing, etc.. It was ahead of it's time back in the 80's. Had they embraced open standards, and kept the emphasis on technology, they might still be around. Complain about IBM all you want, they have always (and still have) a big focus on R&D.
In other news, new antitrust lawsuits are being filed against Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and AT&T.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
It is not reported here anymore as /. has gone into bed with big blue.
IBM clearly violates the GPL for Linux source as they hack it up and make a propriatary version just for their mainframe and resell it. Then, they don't release the source code, even though they charge for it.
Funny how full of hypocritts the OpenSource (communist) community really is.
what hardware are you going to use to run the ibm 390 layer? Your answer will immediately create an I-O bottleneck, when expanded out to corporate-level workloads.
I don't know anything about this code/documentation-stealing thing, but is 84% of the market a monopoly?
I interned at IBM working on PCOMM in the summer of 1998, and at that time everyone was all worried about Hitachi mainframes eating up their hardware business, and terminal emulation from Zephyr
Apparently the hardware part was due to Hitachi's continuing to use bipolar technology for their CPUs (which is what IBM used as well), where IBM made the leap to CMOS - this gave Hitachi an advantage for about two years, but these days, CMOS again has the performance advantage, and IBM was there first.
On the software side (and this is a big deal, because when you sell hardware, usually you sell tens of thousands of software licenses as well), the Zephyr software seemed to be just generally more modern and "better", and that's probably as true today as it was then.
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I remember when RCA computers came in two models, a fast one and a slow one. You could upgrade the slow one into the fast one: A repairman came out and replaced a long cable with a shorter one. (I think this was models 2 and 3.)
RCA was never dominant, much less a monopoly, in the mainframe market.
This is not to doubt that IBM is a monopoly. I know that they used to be. It's just that this isn't proof (though it is evidence).
And, to an extent, the price of mainframe tools is justifible on the basis that they can't expect to sell many of them. Large mainframes are rather like electricity distribution. They are a "natural monopoly" because the entry costs are huge, and there isn't a demand for a large number of them. The reason that they aren't a natural monopoly is basically that there are other ways of accomplishing the same end. Distributed network based computers, clusters of various sorts, etc. But these are recent developments, and are probably intrinsically less efficient than mainframes. So the mainframe area has become the turf of a few (quite few) huge companies that did most of their hardware development over a decade ago (so the costs are sunk) and are selling into a comparatively small market (though IBM seems to be trying to establish web servers as a reasonable extension of their market).
I'm not sure just how much regulation this kind of market warrants. Would the companies actively develop for such a small market? Or are they basically recovering costs for software that they build before the recent structural changes in the market? Not all markets deserve to be protected against monopolies. Consider the market of producing "Metallica" albums. That is basically a monopoly (at least if I got the name right). But in this case the government hasn't decided to insist that the market be protected against the monopoly. Instead they've choosen to strengthen the monopoly. I'm not sure how much effort is justified here, either, but perhaps there is a kind of a continuum from monopolies that deserve governmental support to monopolies that deserve governmental suppression. Perhaps. I tend to believe that over most of the spectrum the appropriat reaction is for the government to ignore the monopoly, and that it should act to suppress widely spread monopolies (i.e., to cause them to cease being monopolies), and that it should support the monopolies in the use of trademarks. And that's about it.
Of course, implementation details are important, but that's the general tenor of my feelings.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I believe that they *do* release the source code, though I did see a reference that indicated that they kept the source for some drivers secret. Still, they are far from the only company to do that. And I wouldn't be surprised if you could get the source to those if you bought the hardware that the drivers support (probably under an NDA however.)
I believe that the MOST that the GPL could be construed to require would be that the drivers be suppliec on a separate tape (or included in the rom hardware). And they probably are. I'm not in that price range, so I wouldn't know, but IBM usually respects the laws when it's at all convenient. (Their marketing department probably got a disapproving note added to their personnel file for the grafitti campaign, even if it was an effective campaign. "It did not cause the company to be perceived in a desireable light by the respectable section of the business community." or some such.) Watson man no longer rule, but I bet his ghost has a lot of influence.
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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I agree, this is sales. But, I should point out that Global Services (for the most part) is staffed by non-sales-types. I've done a ton of work with Global Services over the years and found (in my case anyways) they've never singled out their own products. That said, we have a standard clause we use in any of our contracts with them that clearly states they will have no contact with IBM Marketing (a separate arm) in regards to any consultantcy work with our company. Seems to work fine.
CrazyLegs
"Pork!!" said the Fish, and we all laughed.
I agree that this lawsuit is unnecessary. Unlike the Microsoft case, where the company used it's position to illegally expand it's monopoly (I.E. using licensing schemes to prevent OEM companies from shipping a second operating system with their computers), I don't think IBM has done anything similar in the past few decades. At least, I have no knowledge of them doing so. What I do know is that IBM has been really careful not to tread on other companies' toes since the first Antitrust scare brought against them, at one time refusing to drop prices to stay below costs -- for fear of being seen as a large company waging a price war -- and that cost them dearly.
The government does need to step in every once and a while to keep capitalism from growing too big. But not here, not now.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
IANAL, but...
While IBM is still a MAJOR player in the mainframe and minifraim markets, it seems to me that they no longer have market power (they may have at one time in the ancient history of computers). IIRC, IBM was the second largest player in the server market last year, and came in behind Sun, who also manufactures mainframe and miniframe computers.
Furthermore, I am not convinced that the mainframe and miniframe markets are distinct enough to qualify for anti-trust action, though at one time they are. Comparable alternative solutions do exist with farms of commodity servers, so the hardware market is not exactly a distinct market here.
The time for anti-trust lawsuits vs IBM has passed. Get over it.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
wow compuware is filing a suit that reminds me of the late 80's early 90's
This is called a sales pitch. If I make and sell product A and a customer comes to me and wants a basic server, I don't have to tell him about another companies product, B. It's not my job. If product A will do it but it's overkill, I don't have any reason not to want to sell it. If I sell Chevy's and a customer's description of what they're needing is a Ford, I'll still sell them a Chevy. I have no reason to want to sell them a Ford, even if the Ford is the perfect fit with their needs.
Secondly, IBM ties or bundles its software products into its machines, making it difficult for independent software suppliers to compete in the mainframe market, the suit said.
It's IBM's hardware. They can bundle whatever the hell they want to bundle with it. This would be comparable to M$ suing Apple because Apple doesn't sell a G4 without the MacOS. Apple makes their hardware and the software. If they want to stop selling the hardware, jack up the software price to $2k, and bundle the hardware with it, they are perfectly within their rights to do so.
Are these people really that stupid? Are they just bucking for some publicity?
Now I don't know anything about code stealing or manual plagarism. They might very well have done that. I think these other two key points are frivolous though.
Why doesn't IBM write GNU/GPL clones
of Compuware's products and put them out of
business?
What happens is if a component fails, and needs replacing, they cannot call IBM to get the replacement part, without forking over *loads* of money, as all guarantees and warranties become void
Imagine an Open Source business model working this way:
"Sorry Mr. Smith, we have to terminate your Redhat support contract."
"But why?"
"Because you downloaded a copy for Fred's workstation, instead of buying directly from us. Didn't you read your support license?"
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Gee now where can I download hardware?
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
It's a simulator STUPID! it's not meant to run production systems and replace mainframes - duh. Read the link first, it is just to allow you to practice running a mainframe without risking screwing up your real mainframe, or without having to even own one! It lets you find out what using a mainframe is all about.. to paraphrase buzz lightbeer - "IT IS A TOY!"
Ya know, I'm a microsoft hater, but I didn't agree with the suit against M$ for bundling IE (though integrating it was evil) and I don't agree with this suit. As I read it, IBM was loosing money because software prices for their mainframes was too high. So they went to Compuware and said, do something to lower your prices here, we're loosing money.
Compuware said no way, so IBM got into the business of making their own software and budling the IBM software on the IBM machines. Sorry, but this suit is just dumb bull.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Since IBM is crushing their competition rather than assimilating it.
Ruger
maybe that's why the US hates socialists so much.
they're anti competitive
Actually there are products on the mainframes that do Windows- on IBM they are session managers (essentially two or more dynamic terminal sessions displaying on one character screen kinda like the old Quarterdeck DOS windows), and on Burroughs they were sessions that were tied into their MARC menu system.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
For reasons which I explain here, IBM is in a battle with the higher end supercluster providers. The fact that they won the microcode war and drove their hardware competitors out does not change that they are in trouble for growing their business for the future. And the true cost of mainframes is third party software tied to MIPS for the whole machine. IBM needs desperately for the third-party software vendors to get on the boat with actual use pricing rather then the current entire-box pricing. So they certainly are out to mess with the third-party vendors, but not to eliminate them or generate revenue for Global Services (that's making lemons out of lemonade). They are out to take the Big Stick and beat the vendors into line. So in a sense it isn't anti-competitive, IBM is actually far more concerned with keeping the Big Corporate Gravy Train going and making sure the MS and Unices do not derail them. Now if IBM DID use Compuware's software in some junior VP's bid to get ahead, they do need to pay up.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
That is a licensing issue with whoever the vendor is, and a possible difference between old-school models and Redhat's. Ever work in an environment where there is a mainframe, or other mission-critical server needing .999 or .9999 uptime? That is when the expensive support contracts become worth the money, and for those providing the support, why should they have to fix problems not of their making under the warranty? if someone else screws up, to fix it costs money.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
IBM is specifically forced to work with third-party maintenance companies. This happened a long time ago as a result of another big anti-trust case. If you don't get your support from them, what can they say?
I wasn't criticizing that hypothetical Redhat model.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned