IBM has an ambivalent and costly attitude to the idea of an automated tape library, especially when it’s the highly successful 4400 from Storage Technology. But that may change very soon. Computer Systems News claims that IBM is now free to jointly market a product aimed at the same market after three years of prevarication and legal wrangling in the West German courts. While Storage Technology has been eating out on IBM’s account – the 4400 is estimated to earn $550m this year (CI No 1,284) – IBM itself has been playing piggie-in-the-middle with Schwabisch Gmund-based Grau GmbH and Haushahn GmbH of Stuttgart. Armonk was originally negotiating a development and marketing deal with Grau, but that collapsed in August 1988 and IBM turned to the company’s main competitor, Haushahn GmbH, only to see its new partner accused of stealing Grau’s design. The disgruntled Grau filed suit in a patent court seeking an injunction against Haushahn, and when that was dismissed earlier this year, IBM and Haushahn were free to proceed. However, the US trade weekly says that while IBM has been pushing the automated tape library in European markets, it remains curiously reluctant to do the same in the US. It will preview the libraries only on request, and despite the demand that Storage Technology hasn’t been slow to exploit, it won’t make them generally available. As is so often the case with IBM, there could be several reasons for its unwillingness to provide what the customer wants. There is still a suspicion that IBM hasn’t come to terms with being answerable to the market, and that it’s light years away from acknowledging that the customer is always right. But, as everyone knows, IBM has adopted a more flexible and responsive approach of late. Alternatively, Computer Systems News suggests that IBM is trying to develop a library which won’t stop working because the two robots are on a collision course. Memorex Telex has a an IBM-compatible library, but whenever the robots are on such a course, one stops functioning. Of course there’s always the possibility that IBM will remain ambiguous because automated tape libraries pose the same problem as open systems. If IBM markets the library in a committed fashion, it would be endorsing both the concept and the Storage Technology product that it previously dismissed – it’s line last year (CI No 1,201) was that it already had a 3.5Gb cartridge working and that by 1993 it would be able to store 5Gb to 10Gb on a cartridge and get 28 cartridges into an auto-loader, so who needs an automated tape library?
