Microsoft-Backed Firm Says IBM Is Anticompetitive

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."

Comments

I Don't Quite Understand

[eldavojohn]

So through the whole article from Total Telecom all I could find for a concrete complaint is:

T3 contends that IBM pens in mainframe customers faced with a high cost of switching to other systems, while refusing to share blueprints necessary to offer a cheaper alternative.

I'm not a hardware guy and I'm no fan of IBM but I must be missing something here: what is it about mainframes that makes them so different from servers?

Tampa-based T3 develops mainframe technology compatible with IBM software that is designed for small and midsize enterprises.

Maybe they can't release details but I'm guessing that there's some proprietary chipsets and microcontrollers inside these things to run the (what are they at 32 or 64 processors) CPUs stacked on top of each other and banks of memory and storage and database crap. So what you've gotten software written specifically to take advantage of this stuff? And it's going to be hard to move to another mainframe or standardized servers with that stuff? Are you surprised? It'd be like if I wrote something for Windows and then complained I couldn't get the blueprint from Windows of how the API works so I could move to a "cheaper solution" like Linux.

So if T3 wins this case, what's the ideal outcome? IBM open sources the software that runs on these mainframes? IBM releases detailed chipset information? Both are laughable. And if you're going to argue that, you might as well argue that Microsoft open up Windows or Intel layout the insides of its Atom processors for the world to see.

I wish I didn't find myself defending IBM (I hate their software and these mainframes sound like a scam) but you have to draw the line somewhere or apply to everyone. My advice to the poor companies still at the hands of IBM: get out. Of course that's my advice to anyone foolish enough to buy into vendor "lock-in" software like Flash. Lesson learned: An extra layer of well defined and thought out abstraction will add a bit of overhead but in the end it might save your ass when you need to switch technologies.

Re:I Don't Quite Understand

[TheRaven64]

Once upon a time, a company started selling an emulator for IBM's OS/360-derived line. IBM used various legal tactics to make them stop. This line (it keeps being renamed. I think it's z/OS these days, but I could be wrong) has been backwards compatible since 1960. Any of IBM's customers who bought binary-only software for this platform at any point in the last 50 years is locked in to buying IBM mainframes.

Any customer who insisted on receiving the source code and porting rights to the code is able to move to a new platform. It therefore sounds like Microsoft is arguing against proprietary, binary-only, software. If this goes to court, I imagine the Nazgul will point out that IBM recommends that their customers invest in an open-source software stack, which frees them from lock-in. If people choose to be locked in when their supplier is recommending solutions which do not involve lock in then that's their problem. If they win arguing this strategy then it could backfire on MS quite badly.

Re:a case of sour grapes?

[eldavojohn]

Microsoft is now complaining ......... IBM is so anticompetitive that governments should intervene. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Well, I think it's more a case of "we got hosed in Europe so let's see if we can turn this same sword on our competitors." From the article:

The CCIA now has added encouragement from a tiny firm backed by IBM rival Microsoft Corp., which has lodged an antitrust complaint in Europe, while pressing a related lawsuit in federal court in New York and sounding out U.S. regulators.

Microsoft's been picked over with a fine toothed comb by the EU recently and I think their strategy now is to make sure everyone else is too. If you look at it that way, Microsoft has nothing to lose. They've been scrutinized to the fullest extent and you should expect them to turn this same scrutiny over to other companies in other fields. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sort of anti-competitive gaming lawsuit aimed at Nintendo come about one of these days in the EU.