(Redmond Channel Partner) The Schwartz Report by Jeffrey Schwartz

It appears either Microsoft has mainframe-envy or IBM is not too happy about Microsoft's data center ambitions of late. Most likely, it's a combination of both.

Consider the following:

• Microsoft recently said it is going to offer portable data centers based on its cloud-based Windows Azure platform.

• IBM just launched a new mainframe that is the first to support virtualization of x86-based blades with Linux, not Windows, as the preferred platform. Big Blue appears cold to the idea of the blade extensions supporting Windows.

• The European Union last week launched an investigation of IBM's mainframe business. IBM's response: Microsoft and its minions are behind the investigation.

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(InformationWeek) By Paul McDougall

As it embarks on a campaign to bring the mainframe back to the mainstream, emboldened by the introduction this month of its most powerful data-center class machine ever, IBM is finding that regulatory authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are keeping a watchful eye on its activities in a market it's come to utterly dominate.

The company is still the subject of a Justice Department antitrust probe into its mainframe licensing policies, and EU authorities this week launched their own investigation.

The DOJ began its probe last October, and a regulatory filing by IBM this week indicated it's still active nine months later. "IBM has been notified that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating possible antitrust violations by IBM, and the DOJ has requested certain information," IBM said in a second-quarter report filed Tuesday with the SEC. 

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(BNET) Wired In Blog by Erik Sherman

IBM has managed to become the subject of two simultaneous European Union antitrust investigations, as if one wouldn’t be enough. What it demonstrates is not that the EU is hungry to protect its own high tech industries — which, by the way, it is — but that even a company as smartly run as IBM can land in hot water when hubris directs it to disregard the past.

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(Data Center Journal) By Jeffery Clark

Coming on the heels of IBM’s as-yet unresolved contract dispute with the state of Texas is a new antitrust probe by the European Union (EU) regarding IBM’s mainframe business. Ostensibly, this probe is investigating claims that the mainframe giant has used its strength in this segment to stifle competition through closely linking its mainframe hardware and operating system and through anti-competitive practices with regard to the mainframe maintenance market.

Although the EU investigation does not mean that IBM is automatically guilty of any wrongdoing in the sight of regulators, it does signify additional bad publicity that the IT giant certainly doesn’t need, especially in light of the recent spat between the company and the state of Texas regarding an $863 million state data center consolidation project. According to an EU announcement (“Antitrust: Commission initiates formal investigations against IBM in two cases of suspected abuse of dominant market position”), the European Commission has initiated two separate investigations, but, presumably, IBM’s guilt is not a foregone conclusion: “initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of infringements. It only signifies that the Commission will further investigate the cases as a matter of priority.”

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(eWeek) By Wayne Rash

...But in fact, IBM could decide to do business with the makers of emulators. The reason is simple, and is a lesson that IBM learned the last time this happened. IBM makes a lot of money out of selling its operating systems. This is revenue that IBM wouldn't receive otherwise. It's unlikely to cannibalize mainframe sales because it's unlikely that buyers of an x86 server are really customers that would buy a mainframe...

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(Bloomberg Businessweek) By Stephanie Bodoni and Erik Larson

...The probe is the second time the EU has looked at IBM’s position in the mainframe market. The company settled an earlier case in the 1980s.

“There are some interesting parallels with the 1980s IBM settlement,” said Robert O’Donoghue, a London lawyer who specializes in EU competition law. “What will be very interesting in this case is whether IBM will fight to the bitter end or whether it thinks there’s some remedy that could be offered that would make the investigation go away.”

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(The Economist) Newsbook blog

...The [European Commission's] probe into the alleged tying of software and hardware sales has been triggered by complaints from two firms, T3 Technologies and TurboHercules, which make “emulation” software that allows important applications to run on cheap, non-IBM hardware. They say that IBM won’t allow their customers to buy or license its mainframe operating system to use in conjunction with their software. T3 has lodged an antitrust complaint in America as well as Europe.

IBM retorts that the accusations are groundless and that the firms “want regulators to create for them a market position that they have not earned” by allowing them to effectively steal its intellectual property.  It has also accused them of being “satellite proxies” of Microsoft, one of IBM’s biggest competitors, which makes software that runs on servers that compete with mainframes. And it has been telling anyone who will listen that mainframes’ share of total server sales is so paltry that its market share needs to be seen in the context of the overall server market. It looks like big iron is set to generate some pretty big fees for competition lawyers.

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(Wall Street Journal) By Charles Forelle

BRUSSELS—Reanimating long-dormant scrutiny of International Business Machines Corp., European Union antitrust authorities said Monday they have opened formal investigations into Big Blue's conduct in the market for powerful mainframe computers.

One of the EU's probes was spurred by complaints from two small technology companies that IBM improperly blocks customers from using the mainframe's operating system without IBM's own pricey hardware. The other probe is examining whether IBM is squelching third-party providers of spare mainframe parts.

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(The Wall Street Journal) Real Time Brussels blog by Charles Forelle

...The week’s big news is the commission’s formal probe into International Business Machines Corp., Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia’s biggest step yet onto the well-worn battlefield that is the high-tech industry.

IBM, we’ll all recall, was a principal antagonist of Microsoft during the software giant’s epic wars with Brussels. The IBM-backed European Committee for Interoperable Systems fought on the commission’s side during the lengthy legal process. ECIS’s efforts paid off in 2007 with a court ruling that forced Microsoft to sell a version of Windows without its media-playing application, and to provide technical information needed for rivals to work with its machines.

Now it’s time to print off a few more copies of that ruling. It’ll be used against IBM for sure.

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(domain-b.com)

IBM the world's largest technology company has come under two antitrust probes from the European Commission (EC) for abusing its dominance in the computer mainframe markets.

The EC today said that it had initiated formal anti-trust investigations against IBM in two separate cases of alleged infringements of EU antitrust rules related to IBM's conduct on the market for mainframe computers.

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(NetworkWorld) By Michael Cooney

IBM responded angrily to the claims behind investigations being brought by the European Union today that the company has abused its dominant market position in mainframe computers.

IBM stated it intends to cooperate fully with any inquiries from the European Union. "But let there be no confusion whatsoever: there is no merit to the claims being made by Microsoft and its satellite proxies. IBM is fully entitled to enforce its intellectual property rights and protect the investments we have made in our technologies. Competition and intellectual property laws are complementary and designed to promote competition and innovation, and IBM fully supports these policies. But IBM will not allow the fruits of its innovation and investment to be pirated by its competition through baseless allegations."

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