Re: Peter still in misery (was: Jan doesn't want Peter to know (was: Peter wants

--- In [email protected], "Jeffrey R. Broido" <broidoj@g...> wrote:
> Perhaps they paid the $10,000,000 for the right to 
> use the information they already knew, without the threat of 
> litigation.

True, perhaps.  Depends on how Amdahl came by the information. 
Especially if it was information that Amdahl could have reasonably
deduced on thier own -- might have been the basis of a good defence
(or at least a lot of costly land-shark battles).

IBM (or the owners of zSeries in particular) is the 800-pound gorilla.
 At the moment, said gorilla is still sufficiently intimidating that
it has some power.  Eventually, however, it will not be too long
before *everyone* realises that the 800-pound gorilla is really just a
big, fat, slow, ugly ape.

IBM (again, zSeries specifically) should be glad that there are still
people out there who *want* to pirate zSeries systems[1].  It means
that there is still interest out there.  Unfortunately, it looks like
this interest is being interpreted as justification that the line is
as popular as it has always been, and the 'flagship' needs to be
treated as it always has been.  This could not be further from the truth.

If IBM wants zSeries to persist, they have no excuse for behaving in
the way they are: both manufacturers of plug-compatible hardware have
left the market, and there appear to be considerable barriers to new
players entering the market.  This begins to sound like
anti-competitive behaviour, a game that a company with IBM's history
should know better than to play[2].

The more I think about this, the more I feel that IBM feeds tidbits to
Payne et al, propogating the FUD, scaring folk away from Hercules, and
contributing to the death of the platform.  Hang on, I must be wrong:
what happened to Phil's iron-clad prediction that Hercules would be
issued a 'cease-and-desist' 1Q2002?  Fact is: NO-ONE OUTSIDE IBM CAN
SPEAK FOR IBM, OR OFFER THE OPINION OF IBM.  Not me.  Not any Hercules
developer.  Not anyone on this list.

If and when IBM wants a pound of flesh from Hercules, they will make
it known.  In the meantime I'm going to continue to use Hercules to
develop Linux/390 solutions, and spend as much time as possible
getting as far away from z/OS as I can.  They've already lost me, I'm
afraid.

Cheers,
Vic Cross


[1] There is anecdotal evidence that Microsoft and other Windows
software vendors actually condone a limited amount of piracy of their
products, in order to 'get them hooked' and guarantee ongoing business
rather like a pusher that gives you your first hit for free.

[2] I've also heard that IBM used the existence of Hercules as a proof
that the playing field was level after the departure of HDS and Amdahl.


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