The European Commission has called for two competition inquiries to find out whether the firm IBM has abused its position in the mainframe computers market.

One of the two inquiries will be carried out following allegations by two software making firms named Turbo Hercules and T3. These inquiries will see whether IBM has created any obstacle for its competitor firms to do their business freely.

On the other hand, the IBM has denied to any allegation and vowed to cooperate with the inquiry procedures. Another inquiry has been launched by the European Commission to check the relation between IBM and its maintenance suppliers.

The software firm T3 and Turbo Hercules has accused IBM of tying the mainframe hardware with its mainframe operating system (OS). The EU commission has alleged the firm IBM of bad behavior towards its competing suppliers of the mainframe maintenance services. The mainframe computers are used by big companies and gover5nment to store and manipulate huge amount of data.

In the European Economic Area a total of 3 billion euros were spent on the mainframe hardware and operating system in the year 2009.