IBM rivals now have a better chance of competing with the tech giant in the mainframe market, after the European Commission got Big Blue to loosen its grip on the business. In a legally binding agreement, IBM will make spare parts and technical information "swiftly available". It will do this, the EC added, under commercially …

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Thursday 15th December 2011 15:15 GMT Steve Farr

Apple's turn next?

As Woz used to say "Never trust a computer you can't throw out of a window" when talking about IBM.

Steve Jobs famously insisted that the windows on the new HQ at Cupertino do not open to the outside in case people screw them up.

Well i have my own theory about that.

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1. Thursday 15th December 2011 19:52 GMT dlc.usa
  
  Wel-el-el You Know-ow-ow...
  
  "As Woz used to say 'Never trust a computer you can't throw out of a window' when talking about IBM."
  
  To which mainframers tend to respond, "Never trust a computer you can pick up." And they're generally thinking in terms of Reliability, Availability, and Security. After all, physical access is often the key to a compromise. At least Apple products aren't a joke when it comes to security.
  
  It will be interesting to see if the government chooses to tackle Apple.
  
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2. Friday 16th December 2011 08:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Please go after Oracle
  
  Their changes to maintenance and support forced us to go back to them for the SPARC boxes we have not kicked out yet and now there is no such thing as 9x5 and we have to put every sparc box on maint. Does not seem fair and our prior maintenance supplier was actually better for 1/4th the money.
  
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Thursday 15th December 2011 23:27 GMT Anonymous Coward

Just how big is this market?

I mean, how many blokes will trust their shiny new z-whatever to Boggs the Builder (or whomever)?

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Friday 16th December 2011 08:31 GMT Anonymous Coward

I don't understand why the EU still has a bug up about mainframe. It is an integrated system which serves a small portion of the market. There are plenty of alternative options if users don't want mainframe (although, not good ones, IMO). System z has near 100% uptime and unparallelled security. You can't have everyone and their cousin having at it (a la x86) and maintain those RAS and security levels.... If they are bored in Brussels, how about going after serious market penetration of an entire vertical such as breaking up Intel or ensuring that Cisco isn't abusing their networking dominance. You do not need to use mainframe, but it is nearly impossible not to use Intel or Microsoft.

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