Monopolists Dropped Off At The County Line

An anonymous reader submits: "In this discussion thread members of PLUG (Phoenix Linux Users Group) may have come up with a way to pressure governmental agencies to switch to software other than that from Microsoft. County purchasing policies in Maricopa County, AZ prohibit purchasing from companies or persons convicted under state or federal antitrust statutes. At least one other county, Coconino, that I have checked so far has similar requirements. I think that it's time to make the government follow their own rules and stop spending any more money with criminals."

Comments

Debarment

[Ioldanach]

Note the second link's page doesn't actually say that the contractor must be debarred (prevented from providing services), but only that they may be debarred for a period of up to 3 years. I expect that someone would have to bring this up in a council meeting of some sort to actually have the action taken.

Re:Debarment

[beme]

Hmm. I don't have time to look into it very much, but MN state law has the word "must" in it... http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/arule/1230/3200 . tml

Re:Seems unconstitutional to me...

[miracle69]

A law set forth in a podunk Arizona county

Yeah, Maricopa is a podunk county. Not much there, considering it's the fourth largest county in the U.S. Oh, and it's the fastest gaining county in the U.S. as well.

Re:MSFT was not convicted

[evilpenguin]

Um, not true. The findings of fact and conclusions of law are entered. They have survived appeal. It is only the "sentencing" (the remedy) that is in dispute. Microsoft does indeed stand convicted of violations of the Sherman Act.

shouldn't it start from the top?

[night_flyer]

I think that it's time to make the government follow their own rules and stop spending any more money with criminals.

29 members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse.
7 have been arrested for fraud.
19 have been accused of writing bad checks.
3 have been arrested for assault.
71 have credit reports so bad they can't qualify for a credit card.
14 have been arrested on drug-related charges.
8 have been arrested for shoplifting.
21 are current defendants in lawsuits.
And in 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving, but released after they claimed Congressional immunity.

Re:shouldn't it start from the top?

[night_flyer]

http://archive.lp.org/rel/19990902-Congress.html

Re:shouldn't it start from the top?

[karmawarrior]

There's quite a good debunking that puts the entire thing in context - essentially a second reading of this list of horrors actually shows it's mostly innuendo and cheap showmanship.

Not a criminal matter

[Animats]

Microsoft doesn't have a criminal conviction. Microsoft has a loss in a civil antitrust suit. There is criminal antitrust law, but Microsoft wasn't charged under it. That's for collusion between supposed competitors. (Think RIAA, not Microsoft).

Arthur Andersen LLP has a criminal conviction for obstruction of justice. That's much worse. As of last Saturday, they're out of the auditing business, because the SEC won't accept audits from a felon. All Andersen audit clients must find new auditors immediately. The company will probably go bankrupt. Criminal charges against individual executives may follow.

Re:Not a criminal matter

[PhilHibbs]

You're right, but...

3. Conviction or civil judgment finding a violation by any Person or any subsidiary or affiliate of any Person under State or Federal Antitrust Statutes.

No mention of "criminal" there, so the rules still apply.

Re:Purchasing policies are not set in stone

[DunbarTheInept]

I've got a job with a state University, and so I've seen a few of those "carefully worded" open requests myself, but it wasn't out of a desire to screw the taxpayers or to get *exactly* the one exact product and no other. It's because everyone who has made these requests has been burned at least once in the past by the fact that the ones who look over a purchase request and try to find the cheapest "match", are clerical workers without a lot of tech knowlege. If you leave it up to their judgement to decide if an alternate product is equivilent or not, they often pick something that *they* believe is equivilent, but in reality is not. (i.e. ask for an external scsi hard drive and get an internal one instead (sans power supply).)

This isn't their fault - they are being asked to do an impossible job. They are being asked to guess which parts of a request are flexible and which are not. If I try to order a flat-panel LCD monitor, would a cheaper old-style CRT monitor be an acceptable aternative? That depends. Usually it probably would be, but in this case what if I ordered it specificly because the monitor would be sitting in a magenetic field. (which ends up making it impossible to calibrate a picture tube to display things in the right colors, or to get it to focus properly, as the electron beam in the tube gets bent off-target by the magnetic field.)