Whenever a significant legal challenge is filed against IBM, it seems you don’t have to scratch the surface much to find Microsoft lurking somewhere in the background.

Take the complaint that has just been filed with the European Commission against IBM’s mainframe monopoly. T3, the Florida company that brought the case, was the recipient of a Microsoft investment just two months ago.

The size of that cash injection has not been disclosed, but it will certainly help to support an expensive legal challenge in Europe for a small private company that, by its own admission, has struggled since IBM blocked its mainframe ambitions.

Is it paranoia to see a Machiavellian motive behind Microsoft’s investment? There is certainly a pattern here.

In November 2007, the software company was part of a $37m investment round in Platform Solutions Inc, another company that had tangled with IBM in court. The timing was interesting. Just two months before, Microsoft had lost its landmark anti-trust case in the European courts - a precedent-setting decision that encouraged PSI to turn to Europe as well (as we reported at the time.) Armed with the extra cash, PSI took its case to Brussels early last year, before eventually agreeing to be bought out by IBM.

The most famous example, of course, was Microsoft’s financial backing for SCO Group, which brought a lawsuit against IBM over alleged intellectual property infringements in Linux. Though ultimately unsuccessful, the SCO case cast a cloud for years over the potential IP pitfalls in Linux. Who knows how important that was in limiting the damage to Microsoft’s operating system business?

Asked about the timing of the T3 investment, a Microsoft spokesman did not deny that the legal action against IBM was part of the reason for its interest in the company, though he put it in a broader context:

Microsoft believes there needs to be greater openness and choice for customers in the mainframe market. Customers want greater interoperability between the mainframe and other platforms, including systems that run Windows Server. That’s why we’ve invested in T3 Technologies and other startups: to develop new solutions for our mutual customers.

A truly Machiavellian interpretation, of course, would link the timing of the T3 complaint with the broadside that the EC launched against Microsoft last week: perhaps this was cooked up to distract attention from the software company’s own troubles?

That sounds like a bit of a stretch. The timing of the EC statement of objections seems to have come as a surprise to Microsoft, and when it landed last Thursday the filing date for the T3 complaint was already penciled in. Still, you have to admit that it was fortuitous.

January 21, 2009 1:57am in Software | Comment