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EU Launches Antitrust Investigation Against IBM
FlorianMueller writes "The European Commission announced today that it has launched two parallel antitrust investigations into IBM's mainframe practices, following complaints lodged by T3 Technologies last year and French open source startup TurboHercules in March. EU regulators suspect an abuse of a dominant position and illegal tying of IBM's mainframe hardware to its proprietary mainframe operating system z/OS. There's even the possibility of a third case based on a complaint filed very recently by NEON, and the DoJ is also looking into this matter. IBM now finds itself in a situation previously experienced by Microsoft and Intel. This may also affect IBM's credibility when lobbying in the EU for open standards."
Reader coondoggie points out a response from IBM saying that the accusations are being driven by Microsoft and other competitors.
Thank you. For the /.ers who are (still) unclear about this, having a monopoly is not illegal. IBM is basically the only company left selling mainframes; it's not their fault if everyone else chose to leave what is an incredibly high-risk market that requires oodles of investment. Similarly, tying your hardware to your software is not illegal in itself either (so you can stop clamoring for antitrust litigation against Apple).
What's illegal is abusing a monopoly, you have to have both a dominant market position and anticompetitive activity like software/hardware lock-in before the government has a case. Which I think they do, in this instance.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
blinders on how? PJ is a paralegal and has no ties to IBM whatsoever.
Florian is doing nothing but spin lately. I debunked him before on this article and if he tries this again, I'll debunk him again. We don't need his spin on slashdot.