IBM prevails over Neon regarding Zprime

COMPUTING MONOLITH IBM has settled a disagreement it had with Neon Enterprise Software by accepting its surrender, after the latter accused it of preventing its System z mainframe owners from using Neon's Zprime software.

Zeon's proprietary software lets users run their IBM business application workloads, such as IMS, DB2, CICS, TSO/ISPF just as fast, but cheaper.

The firm had claimed that IBM had been rubbishing its good name and stopping it from doing business, prompting it in December 2009 to send some lawyers around muttering about the Lanham Act and violations of it.

That is all behind them now though, as Neon has settled with IBM and will withdraw its product from the market.

"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," it said in a statement.

The announcement follows a ruling from a US District Court, which ruled that only those workloads that had been authorised by IBM could be processed on Neon's 'Specialty Engines' such as zIIPs and zAAPs, and that IBM's contracts prohibited the use of any other unauthorised kit in the first place.

Having lost in court, Neon has promised that as well as withdrawing its software from the market it will ask that customers remove and destroy their copies. It will almost be like it never happened. µ