Brussels, 14/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 14 December, the European Commission made legally binding the commitments offered by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) on the mainframe maintenance market. IBM commits to make spare parts and technical information swiftly available, under commercially reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, to independent mainframe maintainers.
Mainframes are powerful computers used by large companies and public institutions to store and process critical business information. The Commission had concerns that IBM may have imposed unreasonable conditions for supplying its competitors in the market of mainframe maintenance services, thus infringing EU antitrust rules which prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position. The Commission is satisfied that the commitments, revised in light of observations received in the course of a market test, are suitable to solve these competition concerns. (OL/transl.fl)