IBM, Hitachi to Jointly Market Software

Japan’s Hitachi Ltd. and International Business Machines Corp., once bitter adversaries in a copyright battle, have joined forces to develop financial management and marketing computer software, Hitachi said Monday.

“This is the beginning of broader cooperation,” said a spokeswoman for IBM Japan, a subsidiary of the Armonk, N.Y.-based computer maker.

Cooperation between the two computer giants is of greater marketing than technological significance, industry analysts said.

The pact between IBM and Hitachi is in marked contrast to the mood seven years ago, when a San Francisco court ordered Hitachi to pay an undisclosed sum after IBM accused Hitachi of industrial spying and copyright infringement.

The new agreement will build on recent efforts by both companies to create a standard software operating system. The programs will be based on the Open Software Foundation’s version of the Unix operating system.