On radio 4 last night I caught a brief announcement that the Government are doing a block deal with MS of licenses for the NHS for 70m (per year?). If this is the case and they start doing this in the rest of the public sector, it will kill all competition because to the users in the service the software is then effectively free. Under EU law, deals bigger than 150k gbp have to be
Will this also magically make Windows suitable for academic networks? Which is something it simply dosn't do very well, because of basic design assumptions. At a guess the NHS far more follows the plan of each user having exclusive use of a specific machine.
tendered properly and advertised in the EU journal. If this did not occur,
Is there anything in the rules to indicate that such contracts should favour companies actually in the EU?
the Government are breaking the law. If the argument is that there is only one reasonable source of supply, they are then dealing with an unregulated monopoly. If you believe as I do that this is anti-competitive practice and
It it worst that they would be dealing with an "unregulated monopoly" or a "criminal organisation"?
effectively forms a cartel between the Government and Microsoft, contact the office of fair trading. The E-mail address is enquiries.competitionact@oft.gov.uk
-- Mark Evans St. Peter's CofE High School Phone: +44 1392 204764 X109 Fax: +44 1392 204763