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IBM Faces DOJ Antitrust Inquiry On Mainframes

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the goliath-syndrome dept.

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."

4 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. If Slashdot were fifty years old.... by david_thornley · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
  2. Re:Bad news for Apple? by alop · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Technically, anything proprietary is monopolistic...

    If you're the ONLY one making [mainframes/Macintosh/widget Z], wouldn't that make you an automatic monopoly?

    If someone wants to make a work-a-like/compatible product to your proprietary product, are you bound to oblige?

    --
    --alop
  3. Re:It's the OS by MBGMorden · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    I think that's the crux of the case though. Depending on how courts decide on the issue, refusing to license the software to run on compatible hardware from a third party could be construed as an anti-competitive behavior. Precedent was set with Bell for splitting up a company to solve the issue. It would be interesting to see a court ordered separation of the hardware and software divisions of both IBM and Apple.

    --
    "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  4. Re:I see a business oportunity by azgard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In fact, there is project like that:
    http://www.z390.org/

    But as a mainframe programmer, I can tell you, z/OS is horribly complex due to backward compatibility going back to System/360. So implementing a complete and reliable solution is not an easy task.