Microsoft finally decides to take the battle to IBM

To the mainframe!
For years now, IBM has been at war relentlessly with Microsoft. Sometimes, the war was overt; mostly though, the war was covert, a smile-in-your-face-while-I-stab-you-in-the-back series of relentless, though subdulous attacks on Microsoft, either alone, or as a member of a pack of rabid losers.

Simmering beneath the surface since the release of MS-Dos to other OEMs and the creation of the PC-compatible market, IBM’s anger towards Microsoft came to a boil over three things: 1) the success of MS-Dos, 2) the ascendancy of Windows, and 3) the total (and global) rejection of OS/2 which had been initially developed jointly with Microsoft. (To be kind, I have omitted references to that most idiotic of IBM creations, the abominable IBM PCjr!)

Over the years, IBM took great joy in taking digs at Microsoft whenever possible. It joined numerous consortia in order to hobble Microsoft. It lobbied hard for the Clinton White House to bring antitrust action against Microsoft. When such an action was initiated, it donated several employees to the cause of hobbling Microsoft, especially in the farcical courtroom of that troglodyte, Thomas Penfield-Jackson. It also found a sympathetic ear in the harridan, Nellie Kr’oes, who ran that despicable EU Directorate charged with stealing American intellectual property in the guise of ‘leveling the playing field.’ Since that wasn’t enough, IBM also deployed several trolls in the wish to derail Microsoft’s submission of the Office XML schema, to both the Ecma and the ISO.

Since I believe it would be infra dig to list all the failures here, I shall list the one success of IBM’s warfare: the decision to brand Microsoft a monopolist, both by the federal government of the US, and the desmids at the EU.

Unfortunately for these idiots, the rulings made Microsoft a better competitor.

Fast forward to 2010…

There are reports that Microsoft has invested an undisclosed amount in TurboHercules, a French company. TurboHercules SAS is a maker of mainframe applications which can run on non-mainframe systems. It uses Hercules, an open-source software implementation of IBM's mainframe architecture. It enables users to run mainframe applications on hardware platforms which are powered by Intel and AMD processors.

Think about this: what is IBM’s bread and butter?

If you said mainframes, go to the top of the class!

Look at it this way: if Microsoft, by way of TurboHercules succeeds in weaning mainframe users off IBM’s mainframes and its monopolistic practices, it would have ripped the guts out of the very engine that propels IBM.

That people, is ‘A Good Thing!”

It would also be the ultimate schadenfreude!

It is good to see Microsoft finally going mano a mano with its self-appointed competitors, and looking to draw real blood.

I am going to enjoy this.

It is extremely pleasing to see Microsoft finally playing offense!

Charge….to the mainframe!

More here.