I have been asked for perspectives on the EU investigating IBM for mainframe malfeasance. Other than saying how nice it is to see these two fine organizations keeping each other busy, I really don’t have much new to say beyond our last installment on this topic 18 months ago. The glacial pace is probably fine for the mainframe market. it is possible that the EU has settled on a strategy to pay for their various fiscal excesses by shaking down American technology companies. I’m amused that IBM’s defense playbook is to blame Microsoft (and Opera has no doubt filed paperwork in Brussels supporting them). Unfortunately, IBM’s response doesn’t bolster my hopes they will put their money where their mouth is and open source their mainframe software. Opening this can of utopian whoopass would no doubt shower the mainframe world with innovation and good feelings. I guess IBM’s view, despite all the rhetoric, is open source is still for other people’s businesses:
“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.”