Brussels, 20/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission, on Tuesday 20 September, invited all interested parties to submit their comments, within one month, on commitments offered by IBM on supplying competing mainframe maintenance service providers with certain spare parts and technical information. IBM has pledged to do so “on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and conditions” over a period of five years, thereby addressing Commission concerns that the company may have abused a dominant position by restricting and delaying the access of competing maintenance service providers to technical information and spares, of which IBM is the sole supplier (see EUROPE 10188). A summary of IBM's draft commitments were published in the Official Journal (C275) and the Commission will be able to make the commitments legally binding without being required to deliver conclusions on whether or not there was an infringement of EU rules.
Separately, the Commission decided to close the proceedings opened in July 2010 (see EUROPE 10188) into allegations that IBM tied its mainframe hardware with its operating system. The Commission's in-depth investigation failed to prove the case, and IBM's competitors, T3, Turbo Hercules and Neon Enterprise Software, withdrew their complaints. (FG/transl.rt)