On Mon, 2003-05-05 at 12:02, Chris Puttick wrote:
What about the more extreme case of the council using funds to extend an MS Enterprise agreement to schools? Is this for the OFT to examine or the NAO? I have reason to believe the coucil in question are directly negotiating with MS rather than going to tender for equivalent solutions.
Sorry if I sent this before. I started a reply and had a visitor thought
I sent it but can't find a reference to it!
This particular investigation is as follows.
<quote>
The Act prohibits agreements between undertakings, decisions by
associations of undertakings, and concerted practices which prevent,
restrict or distort competition, or are intended to do so, and which may
affect trade within the United Kingdom or a part of the United Kingdom
(the Chapter I prohibition). The Act also prohibits the abuse by one or
more undertakings of a dominant position in a market where this may
affect trade within the United Kingdom or a part of the United Kingdom
(the Chapter II prohibition).
Under section 25 of the Act, the OFT may conduct an investigation if
there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the Chapter I
prohibition or the Chapter II prohibition have been infringed.
*Subject matter and purpose of the investigation*
The OFT has reasonable grounds for suspecting that Microsoft has abused
a dominant position through the introduction of its School Agreement
licensing option, in particular, through the requirement for schools
licensed under the School Agreement to licence Microsoft software for
all their eligible computers, regardless of whether schools then choose
to install the licensed Microsoft software on all those computers
included within the licensing terms.
<end quote>
I think that you would have to file complaints about things like the
extension of other enterprise agreements to schools on an individual
basis. No doubt that if the OFT rule that schools agreement as it stands
is illegal, other similar license agreements will be too. The key is in
the way the license fees are calculated. If they are specifically
related to identifiable PCs that run no MS Software I think its pretty
cut and dried. If its a blanket license such as £70m for all NHS
computers irrespective of how many its more difficult because site
licensing for software is quite a well-established practice. There might
be a case that since MS is so dominant, site licensing in general is
anti-competitive but that one would be a lot harder to win. My own view
is that at this point focus on an issue that we are very likely to win
is best. Keep things simple and clear and avoid muddying the waters at
this stage. Once this battle is won the next step can be taken because
there will be implications for a lot of the other licensing practices.
Regards,
--
ian