IBM probed by EU over abuse of its mainframe market position

Brussels: International Business Machines Corp., the world's biggest provider of computer services, is being investigated by the European Union over claims it abused its dominant position in the market for mainframe computers.

Discrimination

The probe will review claims that IBM linked sales of its hardware to its software for mainframe computers and that IBM discriminated against competing sellers of services for the computers, the Brussels-based European Commission said in a statement yesterday.

IBM said the probe was the result of a campaign by "proxies" of competitors led by Microsoft Corp.

The commission, the antitrust regulator for the 27-nation EU, said the probe is partially in response to a complaint by T3 Technologies Inc., which Microsoft invested in. T3 makes software that transfers mainframe functions to servers that can run Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Even as IBM has shifted away from hardware to focus on software and services, the mainframe has remained of central importance to the company.