Jeff Gould
October 3, 2008

Standards, open standards and double standards

In my last post I took Big Blue to task for its announcement that it intends to wage war against Microsoft in the world’s standards bodies. The motivation for this bellicose declaration was IBM’s stinging defeat last Spring in its battle to prevent the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) from ratifying Microsoft’s de facto office document standard (OOXML).

IBM charges that Microsoft won at the ISO only because it packed the national standards organizations that make up the ISO membership with its pals.

But the thing that galls me about IBM’s position – and the reason I wrote my post – is not its goody-two-shoes stance about lobbying. No, it’s the flagrant hypocrisy behind this whole open standards campaign. In a nutshell, Big Blue conspicuously fails to practice what it preaches.

Click to read more...

More articles by Jeff Gould, CEO & Director of Research, Peerstone Research

Search

Want to host a Solution Center on Interop News?
For more information, Click Here.

Recommend CCIA applauds EU scrutiny of IBM (Email)

This action will generate an email to the person below recommending this article. Your email address, and the email address of the person you are sending this article to, are not logged by our system.

EmailEmail Article Link

The email sent will contain a link to this article, the article title, and an article excerpt (if available). For security reasons, your IP address will also be included in the sent email.

Article Excerpt:
Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA)
According to recent press reports, European Union antitrust enforcement officials have asked International Business Machines (IBM) for information about its mainframe computer business in response to an antitrust complaint filed by a small competitor, Platform Solutions, Inc (PSI).   The inquiry could be the first step towards a formal investigation of unfair dealings by IBM, which is the world’s dominant supplier of mainframe hardware and software. 
 CCIA welcomes the EU inquiry and encourages EU regulators to act expeditiously, if necessary, to ensure the integrity and competitiveness of the vital mainframe market.


Article Link:
Your Name:
Your Email:
Recipient Email:
Message: