IBM faces EU monopoly probe

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Stu Reeves

Me too... #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 10:36 GMT

IBM abused its dominant market position by tying sales of its operating system to sales of its hardware

Isn't that the same for Apple?

Or the Playstation? or the Wii, your diswasher, car stereo, iPod etc etc etc....

Anonymous Coward

What was the complaint? #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 10:57 GMT

Not being sarcastic, but I couldn't tell from the article. Does t3 want IBM to finance a port of zOS to their hardware, allow t3 to fund the allocation of a team of IBM zOS developers to test on t3 hardware and report incompatibilities to t3, or something else? Does IBM not currently release enough hardware details for t3 to port their own OS to a System-Z?

Or is this just a sales deal that they feel IBM is offering the operating system / hardware package too cheaply, and a stand-alone copy of the operating system (for use on a t3 mainframe) should be less expensive than it is? If they developed independent hardware that can reliably run the actual zOS operating system (as compiled and tested for IBM hardware) with 100% availability, I'm impressed.

I tried to answer these questions from the T3 website, but their press release didn't help. It actually confused me further, since it includes a claim that IBM "also used legal threats and anti-competitive actions to shut down competitors such as T3 and PSI." So, is T3 out of business, and this suit is being brought by their creditors? The website doesn't look like they were shut down.

Anonymous Coward

no title. #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 12:09 GMT

This is nothing to do with game consols or washing machines. Its to do with companies doing a microsoft.

If you restrict access to API's so that non original products do not work as well you are doing a dodgy.

And yes, Apple need to be beaten with a big stick as well.

Mark

@AC and @Steve #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 12:09 GMT

Well, how about, say, checking the pigging complaint?

Oh, and after a poo, please remember to wipe your bottom and pull up both your pants AND trousers in that order.

Anonymous Coward

@What was the complaint? #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 12:09 GMT

I looked at the T3 web site thought it was a glossy mag with pictures of electronic gadgets and girls like Sarah Bee...

Sarah Bee

Re: @What was the complaint? #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 12:15 GMT

Amusingly enough that's where I worked before I came here. But yes, that's T3, not T3 Technologies.

Anonymous Coward

@AC #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 13:07 GMT

Most likely that they want to be able to license zOS and use it on their own (emulated or real) hardware, so that they can then poach IBM customers looking for a way to keep their current applications.

Just a hunch.

jai

Re: Re: @What was the complaint? #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 13:30 GMT

so are we likely to a Girls of El Reg covershoot for this website? :-)

on topic, i would have thought that when IBM bought PSI after they complained, that's proof enough of a monopoly isn't it? if all your competition are so small that you can just buy them if they get out of line, sooner or later you'll be guilty of abusing your market position

Anonymous Coward

@ac - 11:27 GMT #

Posted Tuesday 20th January 2009 20:17 GMT

Its to do with companies doing a microsoft.

Right...that bad old microsoft won't make their software work on a Mac....or a unix box...or an ibm mainframe...or a unisys mainframe

@jai - so are we likely to a Girls of El Reg covershoot for this website? :-)

Or at least the play version with megatron in the background.

Mark

@AC 20:01 #

Posted Wednesday 21st January 2009 10:47 GMT

No, MS is abusing their monopoly. Using windows monopoly to stifle or take over the web browser market (note, the WWW isn't part of the machine, so the OS doesn't get a say in it, it's DEFINITELY an application). That is the current EU bone of contention with MS.

MS also tied sales of their OS to exclusivity in sales. Theoretically MS don't do this any more. They make marketing bonuses (suspiciously about the same as the exclusivity discounts) available on exclusivity deals.

Intel are selling their stuff with rates dependent on exclusivity.

Also, when MS made Lotus fail under DOS by having their OS throw errors if it detected Lotus (or when Win3.1 gave bogus failures if it was running on PCDOS), that is also mirrored by IBM making sure that competing applications fail on their hardware or don't give out information on how to use their hardware based on whether you're a partner or a competitor is a similar buttfucking of the free market.

You don't like the free market if you don't mind seeing it get raped by a company abusing it.

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