"Meanwhile, this settlement with IBM does not affect any other NEON products, the company said. "
Want to make a bet that this does affect both other NEON products and other ISV providers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Settle" is a funny word. It suggests some sort of compermise or agreement. Such a possible compermise might not be visable from the public text issued by the court. I am reminded of a case between BMC and IBM that concerned DASD logging in IMS. BMC had substancial business related to a product called LOG PLUS. IBM introduced its on logging solution with IMS 1.3. The lawers and courts got involved. The case was "Settled" and the public preception was BMC lost. In reality remarkable things happened in the software industry that may or may not of occured due to the not public parts of the settlement. Some of these possible things were BMC went public. IBM stopped participating in the databaase tools business for about 10 years. DB2 tools business exploded. CA went on a 'smaller' software firm buying rampage. BMC fathered / birthed related compaines (including Neon as it turns out) Software companies diversified (they were no longer all mainframe) etc etc etc This doesn't even speak to the question under what conditions might a vendor like CA sell software that enhances IBM hardware or software products? Maybe it is the ISVs that will be deader than a door nail in the next few years. I personally wonder what remarkable changes in the industrty we will see in the next 5 to 10 years that may or may not be a part of this "settlement". On the other hand Aurora may of hit the nail on the head: Who would be interested? I may be retired by then ... Avram Friedman On Tue, 31 May 2011 21:56:47 -0400, Lizette Koehler <[email protected]> wrote: >NEON, a Texas-based maker of mainframe utility software, has settled its >lawsuit with IBM and has agreed to stop selling its zPrime product. > >NEON Enterprise Software, a maker of mainframe software, announced it has >settled its legal dispute with IBM and will immediately withdraw its zPrime >product from the market. > >In the May 31 announcement, NEON said that pursuant to the terms of a >permanent injunction, NEON and its distribution partners and affiliates will >no longer market, sell, license--including any renewal or extension of any >existing license, install, distribute, export, import, offer to sell, offer >to license, offer to install, offer to distribute, offer to export or offer >to import zPrime. > >Moreover, the legal dispute was settled with no payments having been made by >either party to the other as part of the settlement. > >According to the NEON press release on the settlement: > >The U.S. District Court has ruled that (1) only workloads expressly >authorized by IBM may be processed on Specialty Engines (including zIIPs and >zAAPs) and (2) IBMs contracts, including the IBM Customer Agreement and the >License Agreement for Machine Code, prohibit software (a) that enables >workloads not expressly authorized by IBM to be processed on Specialty >Engines or (b) that circumvents IBMs technological measures in Machine Code >that protect the Built-in Capacity of Specialty Engines and enables >workloads not expressly authorized by IBM to be processed on Specialty >Engines. Neon has agreed to a permanent injunction under which it will >withdraw zPrime from the market and request that licensees and customers >remove and destroy their copies of zPrime. Neon will not renew, extend or >transfer any existing zPrime license or any warranty, maintenance or service >period of any existing zPrime license (or any portion thereof). > >NEON filed suit against IBM in the U.S. District Court for the Western >District of Texas in December 2009, claiming IBM was using anticompetitive >mainframe tactics. IBM came back and countersued NEON in January of 2010 for >unfair business practices and anticompetitive behavior of its own, namely >copyright violation. NEON then amended its complaint in February 2010 >sharing more specific details of IBMs alleged anticompetitive behavior. > >In a June 2009 press release announcing zPrime, NEON said: > >NEON zPrime can save companies with System z mainframes 20 percent or more >of their annual mainframe hardware and software costs under conventional >use-pricing structures. Unlike any approach to date that attempts to offload >processing from a System z central processor, or CP, to IBM specialty >processors such as System z Integrated Information Processor (zIIP) or >System z Application Assist Processors (zAAP), zPrime easily enables the >shift of huge amounts of routine workloads running on CPs to these >equally-fast but lower-cost specialty processors. > >Meanwhile, this settlement with IBM does not affect any other NEON products, >the company said. > >http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/NEON-Settles-Mainframe- Software-L >awsuit-with-IBM-848628/ > > >Lizette > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- >For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO >Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
