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IBM Faces DOJ Antitrust Inquiry On Mainframes
Several sources are reporting that IBM is facing an antitrust inquiry from the US Department of Justice due to a supposed refusal to issue mainframe OS licenses to competitors. "Part of CCIA's complaint stems from the tech giant's treatment of former competitor Platform Solutions. IBM had little competition in the mainframe market when Platform Solutions, early this decade, began work on servers that could mimic the behavior of more expensive IBM mainframes, CCIA said. Platform Solutions, based on past mainframe agreements between IBM and the DOJ, requested copies of IBM's OS and technical information under a licensing agreement. IBM declined to grant Platform Solutions a license and prohibited customers from transferring IBM software licenses to Platform Solutions machines, said CCIA, which has members that are potential competitors of IBM."
We spent years trying to get IBM to stop being a monopolistic and evil company, finally got them to change (a bit).
Then Ma Bell, resulting in them being broken up.
Now ATT/Bell is back to being a gigantic mega-company again, and IBM is back to the same stuff they tried against DEC and others.
The more things change...
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
If Slashdot were old enough, this would be a dupe. This is exactly what IBM was slapped down for in the 1960s. The anti-trust case left companies like Itel and Amdahl able to produce and sell IBM-compatible mainframes running IBM software.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'd bet on IBM.
Hell the US DOJ could'nt even tame microsoft a decade ago...
How is this different from what Apple does with OS X and Macs?
NASA announced plans to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade, the president announced that he was not a crook, and thousands of hippies descended upon Woodstock for 3 days of peace & music,
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I never understood how companies could get in trouble for not sharing interoperability information. If I was trying to shut out my competitors, I would offer the information as a license and just charge a stupidly high amount for it.
Platform Solutions: We want to make compatible hardware. Give us documents
IBM: No.
Platform Solutions: Fine, we'll sue.
IBM: Ok. Here is the docs. You owe us $1,000,000,000 to use them
It works well for keeping Joe blow from writing software for consoles, I don't see why it wouldn't work well elsewhere.
(unless some other company tried it and got cut down in court.)
Cloning a mainframe doesn't mean cloning the operating system. Cloning a mac doesn't mean cloning the OS - I can make a workalike mac but apple still wont license me the software. Game machines have built in non portable operating systems. XB360s have operating systems married to their disc drives! In order to clone a game machine I'd have to clone the built in operating system which cannot be done due to copyright restrictions.
What I find interesting is how someone can make a workalike mainframe without violating IBM patents on some CPU/management/I/Oprocessing hardware. AMD and Cyrix have been able to "clone" Intel functionality only because of past agreements and licensing deals and lawsuits.
Apple makes a big point about saying that it doesn't want to sell Mac OS X for use on non-Apple hardware. IBM is essentially doing the same thing and not there is antitrust motion against IBM and not Apple?
. Many mainframe customers would like to find cheaper alternatives, but IBM has prevented them from doing so, he said.
"There's a number of things they have done to numerous companies," he said. "In a time of economic troubles, government deficits and corporate problems, there's a lot of customers that [would find] a choice and lower costs really desirable."
Develop a "mainframe" computer - whatever that means these days, create an OS derived from Linux and develop a COBOL compiler and CICS system for it. I'm sure Websphere can be incorporated too.
Exactly, what's the big deal - technically?
Business: IBM's contracts run out, and move in with a cheaper alternative.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Give the hardware away for free with each OS licence sold.
Or in other words, the pricing doesn't change for legitimate customers, but these guys have to eat the cost of a full system plus their own hardware per sale. That'll stop it pretty fast.
PC is an acronym for "Personal Computer", and Apple does indeed make them no matter what Apple users think. A "monopoly on the platform" is just silly. Id has a monopoly on DOOM, but that's not the point - the point is that that they DON'T have a monopoly on PC games. IBM does have a monopoly on mainframes and mainframe OSes, and Microsoft does have a monopoly on PC operating systems. You don't have to own the whole market to have a monopoly, but you do have to abuse your monopoly to run afoul of the law.
Free Martian Whores!
I'm a little bit confused. What monopoly does IBM have? Aren't there 'mainframes' available from the likes of HP, Fujitsu, Sun, Siemens, and other companies? I suppose that might depend on the definition of 'mainframe'. I know there are certainly supercomputers, and "Enterprise Servers", and "High Performance Clusters", and such available from multiple vendors. Seems to me that the existence of other alternatives, even if they aren't defined as 'mainframes', suggests that all potential customers aren't locked into a single solution from a single vendor (if you've been *using* IBM already, you might be locked in by technical 'vendor lock-in' issues, but that does not a monopoly make).
Last night I went to bed in October 2009 and today it's October 1969 again!??!
And ... sheeee-it! It's 2 months after Woodstock! Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming!!! If there is a God, he's got a cruel, warped sense of humor.
The NYTimes story on the inquiry mentions that they're also looking at IBM's refusal to license their software to run on the Hercules open source IBM mainframe emulator. It ill be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
As a former IBM Employee, I say fight it! They spent BILLIONS developing the technology and now, they should feed thier competition. Yeah, Right! Let Platform Solutions write thier own OS!
I don't see a problem with it when you have a vendor that is providing a total 'solution'. If you don't like that way of doing business, just choose another vendor.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I agree with you, but in the MS antitrust trial, it was ruled that Macs are not part of the PC market, and that Apple did not compete in the same space as MS.
Why is this different from Apple not licensing use of it's OS on non-Apple computers?
Wasn't Irix only licensed to run on SGI machines?
HP-UX? Others?
Personal Computer companies: Many
Mainframe companies: IBM
I know the difference is subtle, but look hard and you'll spot it.
The vast majority of our antitrust laws only apply to companies that are monopolies. Apple is most definitely not a monopoly. The DOJ is arguing that IBM does have a monopoly in the mainframe market, but I don't buy it. I think HP's mainframe sales alone are high enough to show that, and they aren't the only competitor in the field.
Please license VM and MVS under the GPL.
Yours In Tashkent,
Kilgore Trout
What is the definition of a Mainframe? A big fast machine with a shitload of features. High IO, bunch of memory. What's to stop any competitor from building their own mainframes? You can find systems that run the gamut from minicomputer to supercomputer and all points in between from all kinds of vendors.
Antitrust law is a relic of the Standard Oil/US Steel days and it's turned into a logically inconsistent hobgoblin used by competitors to whine about their competition.
First, a monopoly should be supply-side limited, not demand side. If there are 5 products of roughly type Widget available but consumers overwhelmingly choose Widget A, it's not a monopoly.
Second, monopoly law should be applied to physically limited resources that are judged sufficiently "important" to merit govt interference in consensual business. Oil, water, food, air, power, that sort of thing.
Third, frilly features or over-specific classifications should not define a monopoly. "Oooh whaaa! I want a Widget with features X, Y, Z that comes in RED and only vendor X offers it! Monopoly! Monopoly!"
In the words of H Ross Perot, folks it's simple. If there is nothing stopping a competitor from releasing a similar product or if there are already similar products it's not, by definition, a monopoly.
Who cares what Apple users think. Microsoft marketing thinks it. Haven't you seen the commercials about going to the store and buying a $1000 notebook? Or the "I'm 6 and I'm a PC" little girl doing the video?
But if this was Apple vs Palm and iTunes instead of IBM and a mainframe OS, the fanboi's would be saying but Apple developed their software and have the right to deny the use of it to anyone else. Since this is IBM I bet the debate is going the other way... Lets go take a peek....
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
It was mentioned above, by another poster.
Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the personal computer market. IBM has a lock on the mainframe market.
I don't know about the CCIA, but the quoted spokesperson does has published negative statements about IBM before -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Black#Nazi_Nexus
among such.
Personal Computer companies: Many
Enterprise Server companies: Many
Apple's share of 'Personal Computer' space: Around 8%
z/OS share of 'Enterprise Server' space: 9%
You can't compare some extremely broad class like 'Personal Computers' with an extremely narrow class like 'z/OS systems'. When you compare similar things you will find there is no difference at all. Look hard and you'll see that.
What's a mainframe?
Have gnu, will travel.
There may not be a lot of competitors on the hardware front, but anyone who wants to engineer an IBM-compatible mainframe can consult the Principles of Operation manual and build one. This is about the allowing the OS to run on that compatible hardware - I don't know, legally, nor under the 1957 Consent Decree, whether IBM is compelled to do that or not. They did do it for Amdahl and some others, and it didn't seem to hurt them a lot - they seemed to always be 6 months ahead with hardware innovations (on most things, I won't get into details here). Maybe what IBM should do is license the OS to hardware OEMs again - but _only_ what passes for the "kernel": the basic z/OS, I/O subsystem, supervisor calls (SVCs), a few other bits which were public domain in MVS 3.8 and so probably can't be restricted. Then they can still charge money for the pieces that are depended upon by customers: Workload Manager, ISPF editors, database management (DB2 and IMS), CICS, JES2 (spooling and job scheduling), WebSphere, Unix Systems Services, etc. They'd still give away, I think, their z/OS ports of Apache and other open-source tools.
How can you have a monopoly on something that is dead on gone? ;-)
So do we hate IBM now?
Enterprise server != mainframe though. Are you seriously trying to compare IBM's mainframes to say Dell's offerings? Mainframes are indeed a subset of enterprise servers, but let's compare apples to apples.
No, I was not comparing to Dell, I was comparing with high-end offerings from Sun, HP, IBMs own Power6 servers,etc., all of whom happily compare themselves with IBM's system Z. But now that you mention it, why not include Dell? After all, this whole lawsuit is about some companies complaining that their x86 based systems (emulating system Z) are being prevented from competing in the mainframe space. So that must mean that, in fact, those system are considered (at least by the manufactures) to be enterprise class, and thus are fairly considered as competition to system Z. Or is your definition of 'mainframe' so narrow as to only include systems capable of running the same binaries? In that case, every manufacturer of every proprietary product, in any field, is guilty of anti-trust violations.
But you're doing the same thing I am - making a statement of fact that defies the beliefs of these fruits.. and loiok at the result. Even here, saying anything negative about Apple begets what? -1, troll.
Now I remember why I gave up these discussions so many months ago.
If you are going to go so far as to force Apple and IBM to split their hardware divisions and software divisions into separate companies, why not go all the way --
Force a certain largish OS house that also sells rather well-selling Apps that mostly run only under their OS to split their OS department and apps department into separate companies?
Actually, I'm all for it. I like small.
But I'd rather see said certain largish OS house split up before Apple and IBM. (And split into more than two pieces.)
Except for one thing. Splitting said largish company could result in the company's products improving enough to avoid early warm death.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
One thing stands between commodity hard/software and mainframes.
Go back to the recent topic on RAM errors to get a taste of the difference.
The most expensive element of manufacturing is the amount of time a part or a product is receiving human attention. Trained human attention is more expensive than untrained. At present, it takes trained human attention to make sure that otherwise commodity parts can produce the high reliability required in the mainframe world.
Of course, they are automating as much of the quality control for the parts they purchase as they can. But even there you have a cost differential.
And that's another part of the equation relative to competitors exiting.
I'm not sure whether IBM needs to have external course correction for this behavior or not, but I am sure of one thing. Microsoft is not in a position to be involved in the complaints.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Do we really think so?
I mean, put in the simplest terms, should women's and men's athletics be combined for every sport? Today?
Should pizza lovers and steak lovers and vegetarians all be required to eat at Mickey-D's?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
yeah, they may be charging a bit more than is necessary for the hardware and software, but maybe not as much as it seems.
Go back and look at the the recent topic on RAM errors.
Things brought out that are relevant here. Commodity RAM appears not to be significantly more error prone than name brand RAM, but there are still lemons.
A mainframe maker worth its salt is going to have to cull those lemons out, and that kind of hardware testing is expensive.
A huge part of the reason we can buy cheap hardware is that, 30 years ago, the semiconductor fabs realized they could tighten the manufacturing process so much that they could skip testing most parts headed for consumer products.
Statistically, a bad batch would show up in spot checks, and the consumer warranty process could deal with the remaining returns for consumer devices.
For consumer devices.
Google can handle that kind of error rate because the users of their services are expecting an "about" answer. If something weird shows up, they'll search again, mostly.
Most mainframe applications can't handle that kind of error rate.
I suspect T3's complaint stems as much from their ignorance of the amount of real work that goes into building mainframe hardware and software as much as from the problem of not being able to license IBM's software.
If I were in charge at IBM, I would tend to take the open view on the mainframe software as much as on the commodity stuff. I think opening it up would provide significant improvements there, just as it has in the commodity stuff.
(Cast your bread upon the waters.)
But I'd also make sure I didn't try to offer warrantee on other company's work, and that would take a bit of work in the legal department.
Anyway, I think I'd rather see the market pressures play out a bit further, instead of having the government step in and push IBM to open that stuff up too fast.
One thing that should be obvious. Microsoft should be required to separate themselves from any involvement whatsoever.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
If IBM loses this case, wouldn't that open up the door for requiring Apple to allow OSX to be installed on any compatible hardware?
Blar.
Not sure which I'd call more evil.
No, I think I do know.
IBM at least (currently) acknowledges the usefulness of opening things up on the low end. And they seem to be able to see more than a few years down the road, particularly relative to what happens when a company screws its own customers.
Also, Microsoft's involvement in the complaints seems at best out of place.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I hate to disillusion you, but the government won their case against MS and didn't even go to court against IBM.
Since all of the MS competitors driving the case got a big cash windfall from MS, I'd say that the case was quite was successful.
You didn't really believe that MS was going to own the Internet just because of the fate of Java and the Netscape browser, did you?
From a consumer perspective this was a classic case of the old computer acronym GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). The case never was about consumers so the end result didn't benefit them.
You mean they won their case after Microsoft somehow managed to get them to remove all the teeth from the punishment?
You and I see recent history from a very different perspective. That is clear.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Citation needed. Is this an assumption?
The main problem most have with 'getting off' is recording into another language on another platform. You also have the problem of reliability and support. The main reason why so much business back end is still in mainframe is that it works. Before you 'get off' you need somewhere to go. What do you suggest? Java on Windows?
For the last couple of decades may I know have taken a swipe at mainframe / cobol. In the end it comes down to that we still don't have a viable replacement. Call me when you find one.
----
I'll bite. Let's have a look at this. Is it impossible to migrate from mainframe to another platform?
Breakdown: Code (cobol, delta, coolgen, ASM, java or similar). Database, interface, workflow / workload management
CODE: COBOL (coolgen, delta, and other cobol generators) ---> Java, C#, C++
DATABASE: DB2 --> DB2, Oracle, SQL Server (*gasp* *gasp* *die*)
INTERFACE: CICS --> HTTP (apache, IIS (*gasp* *gasp* *die*))
WORKFLOW: OPC / CONTROL-M --> TWS, Autosys, etc
Could another platform execute millions of transactions per hour? Yes. How much would it cost? In ASM, in Java? In C#? In C++?
Can business logic be transferred or recoded into another language? Yes.
Can the job scheduling be replicated on another platform? Yes
Can the database be moved to another platform? Yes
So, what it really comes down to is cost. Yes, it might take a decade, perhaps two, to move off the mainframe an onto another platform. Yes, there are pros and cons for every platform and software / hardware configuration.
----
At this stage, many companies are moving into a world where all of the front end is C# or Java on midrange servers. Much of the batch processing is on the mainframe. After a few years of this the conclusion being drawn is that it would be cheaper to have a mainframe with many virtual linux server instances compared to hundreds of servers in a data center.
======
I still would like to know where you got the idea that you can't get off the mainframe. You can. It just costs.
-----
I don't work for IBM. I do use mainframes. Just so you know: What IBM are charging for (and yes, it is Steep I agree) is for the redundancy, the uptime and the service of having the machine up 24/7. You can pull ram and CPUs out of a mainframe or stick new ones in while it is still running. Mainframes can detect that parts need to be replaced. You are (effective) paying for the security that services will be provided, code will run, data will be processed and that if there is a problem it WILL be fixed.
If you know of a better service, a better way, a cheaper way or even just a direct equivalent.. then speak up. We are listing. Cost cutting is the new black.
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
build high availability hardware. Run with BSD/LINUX/whatever 64/128 architecture you need with massive fail over/raid, recovery services etc.
There sounds like there may be some some entry problems into the market, IBM is very well known and trusted.It also sounds like much whining is occurring amongst their competitors.
Microsoft can't provide mainframe like products, they never have and never will.
HP when they killed the alpha they abandoned it. Redhat is good for intermediate clusters.
Ahmdahl and Fujisti are still around for hardware.
No one is filling a niche for a large scale well supported FOSS commercial high availability mainframe. Except for IBM.
Maybe this is a non-issue (playing devil's advocate from someone who hates large companys)
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
"What I find interesting is how someone can make a workalike mainframe without violating IBM patents on some CPU/management/I/Oprocessing hardware."
IBM apparently thought PSI was successful there. IBM's lawsuit only involved software patents, and just 5 of them IIRC. No hardware patents were involved.
What no one, including TFA, seems to be aware of is that IBM threw in the towel on the lawsuit last year, and bought PSI for $100 Million. All of PSI's employees are now IBM employees.
Is that part of HTML 5?
When I heard the news, I had two reactions.
The first was, since when did it become illegal for a judge to explain his opinion in public?
The second was that, of course Microsoft would play the crybaby to the public, and those parties who were/are addicted to MS software would use it as an excuse to get a new judge who would not have had to sit through all the shenanigans, lots of "powerful" people would breathe a sigh of relief, and Microsoft would get the punishments reduced to keep MS intact.
And I wasn't sure whether or not I was glad Microsoft and their products would then get to die the heat death. Technologically, splitting the company up would be the only way to save the company and its products.
Anyway, considering that MSWindows is the host for most of the spambots that clot the internet, I'd say that proportional punishment should be that they should be taken down hard, one way or another.
If I were responsible for determining their punishment, I'd have ordered the company to shutter all projects except security and maintenance for ten years. And I'd have required the primary share-holders to finance the company entirely for those ten years.
Or I'd have split the company into OS, office tools, dev tools, web browser tools, and miscellaneous applications companies, and ordered the several new companies to interact only through public APIs unencumbered by either patent or copyright, so that the playing field would be leveled somewhat. And I'd have set a limit of six months to arrange the splits, and a total year for the APIs to be made available and the splits completed.
Either way would actually still be on the side of leniency. Proportional punishment, shuttering the company and banning the further sale or use of their software, would have induced too many withdrawal pains on the general economy.
But heat death also will ultimately do the job, although it has left us with all those botnets.
(You can complain that the problem is inherent in being the virtual monopoly, okay market leader, but look at that for what it is. If they want the privilege of owning all the tubes, they should make their tubes strong enough to hold. Failing to do so is another of their social crimes.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I see.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
IBM has a monopoly on z/OS-compatible mainframes, with competition from Sun, HP, and even (at the lower end) PC clusters.
Apple has a monopoly on Mac-compatible home computers, with competition from PCs.
Apple also has a monopoly on iPod-compatible personal media players, with competition from MP3 players and other similar devices.
Nintendo has a monopoly on Wii-compatible game consoles, with competition from Sony and Microsoft.
Toyota has a monopoly on Prius-compatible hybrid vehicles, with competition from GM and other car manufacturers.
By narrowing the definition (a Sun high-performance enterprise-class server is not a mainframe, a Mac that can even run Windows is not a PC, etc.), people can say that anything is a monopoly. For example, suppose McDonalds sues Burger King for a monopoly on "Whopperlicious" food items. Even though the Big Mac is competition, the way "Whopperlicious" is defined removes Big Mac from the list of competitors because McDonald's definition of "Whopperlicious" is "anything compatible to the Burger King Whopper." A Big Mac can't be Whopperlicious no matter how hard they try, because the ingredients and manufacturing process are not identical. Of course, you can't run software on a Whopper, but this case would be like ordering Burger King to require McDonalds to license them the cooking process and sell them the ingredients. It doesn't matter if McDonalds sells nearly 10 times as many Big Macs as Burger King does Whoppers; if the case defines Big Macs as "hamburgers" and Whoppers as "Whopperlicious," then the Big Macs have plenty of competition (from every other hamburger maker in the world and even McDonalds itself), but the Whopper is technically a monopoly.