IBM seals mainframe monopoly with PSI acquisition | | 2008-07-03 | | IBM announced Wednesday it has acquired rival mainframe manufacturer Platform Solutions Inc (PSI) for an undisclosed sum.
PSI’s technologies and employees will become part of the IBM System z business unit of the IBM Systems and Technology Group.
The acquisition ends a history of acrimony and litigation between the two companies.
PSI specialized in adapting Itanium-based servers to run mainframe software, offering lower end mainframe users higher performance for a better price.
In 2006, IBM file a lawsuit alleging that PSI’s Intel-based mainframe emulator systems infringed its patents on the z/OS operating system for the System Z and its older, OS/390 mainframe operating system. The company also discontinued support for software running on PSI machines.
PSI launched a counter suit in 2007 claiming that IBM was abusing its mainframe monopoly to keep competitors out of the market and brought an antitrust complaint before the European Commission.
All legal actions have now been dropped, leaving IBM the sole player in the mainframe market.
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