IBM Tightens Stranglehold Over Mainframe Market

Linked by David Adams on Wed 2nd Jul 2008 19:09 UTC, submitted by WillM

"IBM has just announced it is Platform Solutions, Inc. (PSI), its small but most significant competitor. PSI is/was a small mainframe manufacturer that had sued IBM over the same anticompetitive practices in Europe and New York. The Computer & Communications Industry Association sees this as a clear attempt by IBM to purchase a company solely to foreclose competition in the mainframe marketplace, protecting IBM's cash cow at the expense of consumers. This acquisition should be a cause of concern for competition authorities throughout the world." Update: more discussion on this story here

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Eeek, the boss is in!

by mabhatter on Wed 2nd Jul 2008 22:50 UTC

Member since:
2005-07-17

Hey boss, you forgot to include a link to your story!!! Being as I can't RTFM I'll, of course, comment on it anyway! We won't let that stop us!

I think IBM has great staff, but slow management. They still tend to use their market locks and big bags of money when they can't get their products out and people buying. I'm an iSeries administrator and their keeping up with the market forces on that platform is painfully slow, we JUST got PHP and MySQL "blessed" by the big blue gods like it was some kind of gift, but they just lock it up and know companies will buy their 5 year old crap because they have to. They're just now marketing things the system was capable of 5 years ago.. way to sell a platform guys!

If you can't compete, buy your way out! BushCo is still in office, might as well get these acquisitions thru while they're being rubber-stamped!

Reply Permalink Score: 1

RE: Eeek, the boss is in!

by jbaker314 on Wed 2nd Jul 2008 23:56 UTC in reply to "Eeek, the boss is in!"

Member since:
2008-07-02

I suppose you want to ignore the fact, well documented in the various court filings, that PSI had in its possession IBM restricted documentation, illegally transferred to PSI during their acquisition of the old Amdahl holdings.

IBM was lawfully protecting their intellectual property.

The acquisition of PSI is nothing more than a matter of cost savings vs. a protracted legal fight, which PSI had no chance of winning.

Reply Permalink Score: 3

by Soulbender on Thu 3rd Jul 2008 09:48 UTC

Member since:
2005-08-18

IBM has just announced it is Platform Solutions, Inc. (PSI), its small but most significant competitor.

I'm guessing there's an "acquired" missing in that sentence but I cant really tell since there's no link to the original article.

PSI is/was a small mainframe manufacturer that had sued IBM over the same anticompetitive practices in Europe and New York.

Same? as what?

Reply Permalink Score: 3

No impact on our mainframes. :-)

by rcsteiner on Thu 3rd Jul 2008 15:54 UTC

Member since:
2005-07-12

Then again, the Unisys Clearpath stuff that we use isn't "IBM compatible" by any stretch of the imagination.

Besides, it isn't like "consumers" are in the mainframe market. :-)

Reply Permalink Score: 3

RE: No impact on our mainframes. :-)

by jwwf on Fri 4th Jul 2008 03:56 UTC in reply to "No impact on our mainframes. :-)"

Member since:
2006-01-19

Then again, the Unisys Clearpath stuff that we use isn't "IBM compatible" by any stretch of the imagination.

Besides, it isn't like "consumers" are in the mainframe market. :-)

Wow, do you guys run the Burroughs system (MCP), or the Univac one? What are the apps?

Reply Permalink Score: 2

It explains why mainframes are so expensive

by alban on Fri 4th Jul 2008 10:42 UTC

Member since:
2005-11-15

If only there was more competition we could all afford some monster machine the size of a house to run our Cobol banking apps and play chess with.

Reply Permalink Score: 1

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