When it comes to IT, the word `monopoly’ is invariably heavily loaded with portents of controlled availability and inflexible product offerings. This is certainly the perception that comes hand in glove with IBM and the mainframe marketplace.  

The truth about any monopoly, however, is that it has the potential to be at least as good for users as any perceived badness normally associated with the word. And with the recently announced acquisition of small, Sunnyvale-based rival, Platform Solutions Inc (PSI) IBM now gets the chance to demonstrate – under a very public magnifying glass – just which interpretation of `monopoly’ it is going to exercise. 

To call PSI a `rival’ to IBM in the mainframe marketplace was, of course, stretching the word to near breaking point, but its technology – a hypervisor that allows mainframe code to run on Itanium-based hardware – has (or possibly had) the capability of opening up the mainframe market outside its normal user base. Its key advantage is to offer the possibility of a lower-cost, probably lower-performing alternative platform. This could help move mainframe applications into the mainstream of event-driven web services, for example, and could run them on the same platform as a wide range of applications from other platforms. 

There were, of course, the crossed lawsuits that existed between them: IBM suing for copyright infringements and PSI countering with an anti-trust suit; but they are now gone. It would be easy to assume that IBM bought PSI just to stop the action against it, though I suspect its lawyers could have kept the legal wrangling going long past PSI’s ability to fund the fight, and IBM’s lawyers still need paying, regardless. Such an action would also be a certain mark that company favoured the `bad’ side of monopoly. 

That fear has been expressed by US Computer & Communications Industry Association president, Ed Black. He has suggested that “it is transforming a market with latent potential for competition and innovation into a sector with little prospects for anything but complete domination of IBM.”

Well, yes, that potential is now stronger than ever. But IBM has a history of allowing different divisions to compete for the same markets, and sometimes compete with extreme prejudice. In the mainframe market, where the development costs in both hardware and software (and systems software in particular) can be mind-bogglingly high, monopoly may in practice be the only way to make it work. But that does not mean the only answer needs be z/Series, and only z/Series. IBM can have an over-arching policy for, what shall we call it?, big enterprise solutions, but will happily let the divisions fight it out for a share of the business.

The company has already hinted that the PSI technology is set to be exploited for future products, though they are unlikely to appear as z/Series systems. One way (and potentially a very charitable one) this can be interpreted is as a pitch at creating a win:win:win situation.  

The market would win because it would get delivered, from a different division of IBM, the types of platform that do accommodate the mixing and interoperation of radically different operating environments. It could also open up the market for new users that could make business sense of a smaller, cheaper, slower (but just as robust and secure) `mainframe’ system. Here lies real market potential, but arguably one the z/Series team might not feel happy with. And as this is a software technology running on a standard platform, other vendors could be licenced to sell it too. 

Third party applications and tools vendors would win because new business opportunities would be opened up for them. It could also open up the market to competition from ISVs from outside the mainframe community. 

IBM would win because it would maintain control over The Mainframe at a strategic level. Despite the inevitable cries about stifled innovation, the upfront costs of playing in the mainframe market – either as vendor or user – are such that a good deal of strategic control is necessary. Innovation can be a good thing, but it can also kill.  

Let’s not forget that the wild-frontier web services sector actually exists off the back of a raft of standards that vendors actually adhere to. Thankfully, the days are now gone when the likes of dear old Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment, would utter sayings such as (and I paraphrase) `we believe in the standardisation of Unix, and will differentiate ours by including this, that and the other that nobody else can offer’. 

And yes, this is a charitable view, and it is IBM. We must wait and see. But don’t cry for PSI, for its legacy may yet be marked by important changes.