While the Iron Curtain was in place, VEB Kombinat Robotron must have been one of the more nagging irritants besetting IBM: the enterprise was the one Comecon company that successfully built mid-range mainframes copied from IBM’s 370/145 and 4381, and IBM didn’t even get any software revenues from the things as it does whenever Amdahl Corp or Hitachi Data makes a sale. But from being an irritant up to last November, Robotron has swung round to become an opportunity, and one that IBM has grabbed from under Siemens AG’s nose. IBM Deutschland GmbH has signed an agreement under which it will maintain Robotron’s 500 or so mainframes in Eastern Europe – thereby getting an insight into each of the liberalising former Soviet satellites. Robotron will assist IBM in the sales and service of IBM computers in East Germany and the two will collaborate on software development. A more extended joint venture in which IBM would become involved in Robotron’s computer manufacturing operations is also under discussion.
