Platform was started in 2003 by alumni from Amdahl, one of two companies which used to compete with IBM in the mainframe market, albeit by making plug-compatible machines, meeting IBM's standards. The two bit dust after being left in the dust in trying to keep up with IBM's changing hardware requirements.

Platform used Intel microprocessors, rather than IBM's proprietary chips, to muscle its IBM software-compatible computers. Hence Intel's interest. Mainframes, used to power data centers for large corporations, notably transaction-heavy banks, and government agencies, notably the ones that track citizens like flies on stink, cost upwards of $1 million per crackerjack box.

Platform ratted on IBM in Europe because there's no one to rat to in the U.S. For example, Microsoft, found guilty of antitrust in the U.S., was let off by Bush administration officials with a handshake and a wink. In Europe, Microsoft has faced repeated scolding, and fines approaching a billion dollars. Ornery continentals.

Less than three months from EU antitrust regulators squawking they'd have a look, but before starting a formal investigation, IBM silenced the noise by not so quietly buying Platform. Pesky press reportage. The sum at least remains undisclosed.

IBM purred that Platform was too small a bit player for any antitrust review by authorities on either side of the puddle (U.S. or Europe).

Ed Black of the trade group the Computer & Communications Industry Association, thinks the IBM purchase "means it was scared about the case and wanted to get rid of the problem." IBM could have just settled the case, leaving Platform extant. "By buying them, they extinguished a competitor."