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Microsoft-Backed Firm Says IBM Is Anticompetitive

Posted by timothy on from the ibm's-suffered-under-the-antitrust-whip-before dept.

BBCWatcher writes "Microsoft has long claimed that the mainframe is dead, slain by the company's Windows monopoly. Yet, apparently without any mirror nearby, Microsoft is now complaining through the Microsoft-funded Computer & Communications Industry Association that not only are mainframes not dead, but IBM is so anticompetitive that governments should intervene in the hyper-competitive server market. The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is worried that the trend toward cloud computing is introducing competition to the Windows franchise, favoring better-positioned companies including IBM and Cisco. HP now talks about almost nothing but the IBM mainframe, with no Tukwila CPUs to sell until 2010. The global recession is encouraging more mainframe adoption as businesses slash IT costs, dominated by labor costs, and improve business execution. In 2008, IBM mainframe revenues rose 12.5% even whilst mainframe prices fell. (IBM shipped 25% more mainframe capacity than in 2007. Other server sales reports are not so good.) IBM mainframes can run multiple operating systems concurrently, including Linux and, more recently, OpenSolaris."

4 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Trust Microsoft's judgement in the matter by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    they know all about being anticompetitive.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  2. A few generations from now by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Funny

    What, you mean computers were actually capable of opening more than one window at a time?

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  3. On the n-bit jokes about Windows 95 by jonaskoelker · · Score: 3, Funny

    Windows 95 is a
    32-bit shell for a
    16-bit extension to an
    8-bit operating system designed for a
    4-bit microprocessor by a
    2-bit company that can't stand
    one bit of competition.

    (stolen from http://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-users/2003-May/018396.html)

    Also, "two-bit" means "(1) cheap; gaudy; tawdry; or (2) Mediocre, inferior, or insignificant".

    (stolen from http://www.yourdictionary.com/two-bit. Try to find the definition in-between all the ads.)

  4. Microsoft Can't Do That by Comatose51 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Microsoft can't call IBM anti-competitive; I'm sure IBM already has patents on technologies related to "methods by which a pot calls a kettle black".

    --
    EvilCON - Made Famous by /.