The European Commission opened an investigation into IBM attempts to buy Sweden's Telelogic. The Commission said that it was concerned that the deal would give Big Blue too much power in the European software market.

Associated Press reports that EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said if the deal went ahead, "IBM would become by far the largest vendor of software development tools for software modeling."

Telelogic sells testing software products to the defense, communications and automotive industry. IBM wants to to buy Telelogic for 557 million euros even though the two
companies were direct rivals.

The EC feels that a link-up between the two "could have adverse effects on competition" and reduce interoperability with tools from other vendors.