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Should Microsoft Be Excluded From EU Government Sales?
David Gerard writes "From Groklaw: Heidi Rühle, a Green Party MEP, has presented a question regarding whether or not Microsoft should be considered as having failed to fulfill the conditions to participate in public procurement procedures in Europe, as laid out in Article 93(b) and (c) of Financial Regulation — '(b) they have been convicted of an offense concerning their professional conduct by a judgment which has the force of res judicata; (c) they have been guilty of grave professional misconduct proven by any means which the contracting authority can justify' — and the Commission anti-trust penalty just happens to fulfill both of those conditions." The EU Commission is required to respond within 6 weeks to such a question from a member of Parliament.
Sell MSFT now while you still can...
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
That's bad for Microsoft.
Amnesty International
1/2 the size regarding landmass. i'm pretty sure the true (software) market size of the EU is larger when compared to the US.
Yup, about 63% larger.
US Population: 301,139,947
EU Population: 490,426,060
Excellent.
Differently than in the U.S. most EU parlamentarians don't have an individual mandate, but are sent to the parliament by their party, which has to win the necessary seats in the parliament in the elections (so called list mandates).
So, Heidi Ruehle (if you don't have Umlauts, use 'ue' instead) doesn't have individual campaign contributors, more to the contrary, the rules of the Green Party demand a strict differentiation between "being in office" and "having a mandate".
I think you miss the point of the Green party. Their goals have always been about forcing governments and companies alike to recognise social justice, whether environmental, economic or otherwise. True their foundations were the environment, but that was one of the greatest social injustices of the time (and unfortunately it still is to a large extent).
they are not talking of banning ALL Microsoft products! They are talking about barring Microsoft from Future tenders. The current contracts will be fulfilled, just no new ones will be accepted. Which I think is a good thing. It would provide a slow change over from Closed source OS to an Open source OS. As for the "Green" Aspect: how much of the worlds carabon foot print is caused by Tech support running around trying to Fix Windows BSoD's? and general buggines?
Laters Sol "Have you found the secrets of the universe? Asked Zebade "I'm sure I left them here somewhere"
I would imagine that the exclusion would follow standard public procurement procedures within the EU, whereby Microsoft would be excluded from applying for public tenders because they weren't compliant with existing regulations.
Where they are already in place, they would not need to apply for tenders. If new departments etc came into existence, then they could use other presentation software and would have budgets for training etc.
So basically Microsoft wouldn't be able to grow their existing base, until they sorted out their compliance. But current users of their software would be unaffected.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
You're missing the point. Being a monopoly isn't necessarily a bad thing. Abusing a monopoly, however, is a BAD thing and also illegal. Microsoft could have quite happily played along with the law and been a monopoly, but they chose to disregard the law and abuse their advantage in one market to gain advantages in other markets.
Well said. I mean, come on... public money vs. convicted criminal organisation... it doesn't take a lot of ethics to work out that Microsoft products shouldn't be bought by our governments.
actually, this is simply following their own procedures. if you have a law regarding procurements that states in what cases a company can not participate, you sort of are expected to follow it. mostly.
in this case the question would be whether a single company should be awarded an exception.
Rich
Since when has 17.6 trillion USD been practically equal to 13.8 trillion USD? That is IMF estimated EU for 2008, and actual USA for 2007, but the IMF are predicting a mild recession in 2008 for the USA so that 13.8 is not going to improve. I believe Eurozone is a bit smaller, but that is mostly because the UK is not in the Euro, and we are the second largest economy in Europe after Germany.
They're not suggesting that they can't carry on using existing software (ie. migrating away from MS), merely that they can't buy NEW software from MS.
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
This is the same Bush who imposed crippling tariffs on European steel firms to protect American firms? And who suddenly saw the importance of free trade once the EU imposed sanctions on the products of several swing states just before the election?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
And you'd be wrong.... I thought this too, up until I talked about it with a real Frenchman. This rule had been introduced in the times of the typewriter where it wasn't possible to make uppercase accentuated letters. The académie française changed that later because nobody uses typewriters anymore and computers can actually do it. You're now supposed to use accents, even in the uppercase form.
Microsoft has been punished already. Time to move on.
Not true, it has NOT been punished, because it didn't do yet what it has been asked to.
wtf.n0x.org
"If the EU was so righteous, they wouldn't be doing business with China."
That's downright funny, coming from a citizen of a nation that owes $9 trillion - much of it to China. Who do you think is financing the current round of wars? It isn't US taxpayers, that's for sure.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.