A couple weeks ago the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, announced the commencement of a formal investigation into IBM’s mainframe server sales, indicating that it would look into allegations that the company was linking sales of its servers to its software and services. Not a surprise as the EU continues its relentless march to be the pervasive global regulator, and chief mugger of US technology brand names. The EU interest in regulating the global information technology industry for the most part located in the US, seems to be the EU’s primary interest in innovation.
IBM has captured the attention of the European regulators this time, after similar assaults on Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and the EU is currently nosing around Google, although similar claims made against IBM in New York were dismissed nearly a year ago. The EU is being cheered on (as was the case in the situation with Microsoft and Sun) by European competitors.
These cheerleaders are apparently seeking much more than justice or even good sport. Indeed, it seems that they are again using EU competition (antitrust) regulators as tools to expedite what they are impatient to do – gaining market share in the competitive marketplace. In other words, politics and EU protectionism are again driving the decision.
That the US continues to allow the EU to mug our technology industry is a different story. Standing idly by as others urge global regulators to tear apart the US innovation sector while our economy sheds jobs and growth, is simply not acceptable.
As IPI scholar George Pieler has written, “Europe is a spectator of the software scene (albeit a particularly annoying one), skimming a little money off the top with its antitrust fines while pretending to stand up for European technological might. It's a pleasant bit of theater, but don't confuse it with the real world.”