Should Microsoft Be Excluded From EU Government Sales? 350
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.
I hope they are... (Score:4, Interesting)
(/me crossing fingers)
This is unlikely to happen (Score:5, Interesting)
(a) they are bankrupt or being wound up, are having their affairs administered by the courts, have entered into an arrangement with creditors, have suspended business activities, are the subject of proceedings concerning those matters, or are in any analogous situation arising from a similar procedure provided for in national legislation or regulations;
(b) they have been convicted of an offence 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;
(d) they have not fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or the payment of taxes in accordance with the legal provisions of the country in which they are established or with those of the country of the contracting authority or those of the country where the contract is to be performed;
(e) they have been the subject of a judgment which has the force of res judicata for fraud, corruption, involvement in a criminal organisation or any other illegal activity detrimental to the Communities' financial interests;
(f) following another procurement procedure or grant award procedure financed by the Community budget, they have been declared to be in serious breach of contract for failure to comply with their contractual obligations.
2. Candidates or tenderers must certify that they are not in one of the situations listed in paragraph 1.
Not to mention the added bonus of all that cash heading into European projects like KDE and linux instead of overseas.
Not sure what the American Gov would think of it though...
Re:Big Problem for MSFT (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, it's the other way around about your statement. It's "who is corrupt enough to be bought off by MS to cancel this", not the other way around. Meanwhile, if MS even tries to cancel this it will backfire on them bigtime (antitrust round 3 anyone?). I'd say that this is pretty much guaranteed although the bigger question is how to enforce existing contracts through that duration and also the question of if the countries in the EU will have the balls to follow through on this.
Not to be totally ad hominem, but where is your incorrect logic coming from? The situation here is the exact opposite of what you posted, and coincides with your signature. WTF?
It's like one of those spam letters with a philosophical message at the bottom.
Re:Criminal organisation (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Criminal organisation (Score:5, Interesting)
Looks Good on Paper, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Ubiquity of the (somewhat decent, I guess) baseline bundled Windows Mediaplayer results in raising the bar in competing media players (iTunes, Winamp?, etc.) Ubiquity of Internet Explorer results in stronger browser competition (Firefox, Opera, etc.). Microsoft makes noises like it's going to compete in other areas like web design products and you see companies like Adobe (attempt to) shore up their products to stay ahead of the baseline (Microsoft). I suppose you could throw office products in there as well, but Microsoft has that market so well cornered like that with its OS...and standards are an issue..
My point is this, Microsoft may be the devil, but the ubiquity of its (sometimes bad) products has resulted in a marketplace with competing products that are better than Microsoft products because they MUST be in order to compete. I'm not saying this is entirely due to Microsoft's presence, but it has definitely been a key factor in application progression over the past ~10-20 years.
For these reasons, I think removing Microsoft from this position could result in stagnation in some areas of application progression and improvement. Then again maybe it won't. Maybe other solutions are to the point that removing Microsoft from the picture completely won't affect much of anything. Regardless, I don't think that this is a decision that needs to be taken lightly in order to pander to constituents (politicians are amazing at pandering).
Which? (Score:1, Interesting)
Which of them is? Microsoft or the EU?
If I had to name anyone as being less accountable and more corrupt than MS it would probably be the EU. Not only that, reporters following on the trail of EU corruption have been known to be arrested before now. [telegraph.co.uk]
Microsoft or the EU. It's a tough choice.
But let's put the EU on one side (if only those of us who labour under it's ambitions could!) and rephrase the question. Let's make it "government" in general not just the EU.
"Should Microsoft Be Excluded From Government Sales?"
I think any government anywhere in the world ought to think very hard about this one. I'm disgusted at what when on at ISO. However, I don't think I would ban Microsoft outright now. If I were making policy for any governmental body I would be saying: "We will only consider tenders from vendors whose software will save into open formats" -- and by open formats I would not mean OOXML. And if MS wanted to offer a version of Office that would save -- natively -- into ODF, I'd accept tenders from them, and have those tenders considered on their merits. However, if I found anyone from Microsoft had attempted to influence buying decisions in any underhand way -- say by offering sweeteners to government officials -- I'd ban them for that, and not for a short period either. It would be for years.
Re:That would just about scuttle the Airbus tanker (Score:3, Interesting)
While I don't label myself as Republican or Democrat (mainly because I share views that exist in both the extreme left and the extreme right), I do NOT want McCain getting into the white house. Too many ties to current politicians, to many years of "experience" to get corrupted. Reduced education budget (which is a big concern for me since my girlfriend is a teacher), excitement about continuing to pump billions into a country most of us will never even see while our own country is falling apart...basically having many of the same opinions and plans as what we have had for the past 8 years.
We do NOT need to give Bush another term under a different name. Likewise, we don't need someone like Hillary Clinton occupying the white house...she shares many of the same views as Obama, but she is dangerous...I think she would do us more harm then good, if for nothing else other than because of her pride and sense of entitlement.
We need Obama in the White House. It kind of pains me to say that, because I disagree with most of his opinions on the big issues, but he is the right one.
1. He has the LEAST amount of experience, meaning he would be more willing to take risks and try things others wouldn't. He would also likely be more willing to take advice from others.
2. When he speaks you feel as if he is speaking directly to you. Some of the stuff he says may be cliche, but being able to connect to the citizens of the country that way is vital.
3. He is a complete opposite of what we have had.. I don't know about you, but I am EXTREMELY pissed off at what has happened to my country recently. In the past 20 years or so, we have gone from being the worlds strongest, richest, and one of the most respected nations out there to being the annoying friend everyone else in the world wants to go away...but we have a sweet car and buy free drinks for everyone, so we are allowed to stick around.
Screw that. Like I said, I don't agree with many of his policies and opinions, but I still think Obama is the right one for the job because he lacks experience, can connect to the common middle-classer, and is a far step away from who we have had recently.
Re:This is unlikely to happen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ummm, yeah... (Score:3, Interesting)
Rather than a "ban", the EU could resurrect some old laws that are almost certainly still on the books:
Declare the corporation of Microsoft an outlaw, confiscate all its properties and put those properties in the commons.
All Microsoft copyrights and patents are immediately nullified within the boundaries of the EU.
While this may seem a little unusual, it would be an easy solution that would allow governments and agencies dependent on MS products to go forward without hindrance (or continued payment of licensing fees). It would have no serious repercussions on businesses that install or support Microsoft products (except that with the absence of licensing overheads, their gross would suddenly jump, as would their tax liabilities). An entirely new software industry built on chunks ripped from Microsoft code would blossom overnight.
This is something to think about.
Re:Criminal organisation (Score:3, Interesting)
What if your socks were to burst into flames, just because I wrote these words?
I think that close examination will reveal that the EU is not in fact in the process of killing anyone at Microsoft.
For that matter, I'll be very surprised if it turns out that your feet are on fire.
Re:Ah, you forget... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Ah, you forget... (Score:3, Interesting)
Balance of power. The EU used to be dominated by France and Germany. They formed a voting bloc that almost always got its way, by sheer weight of population and hence voting rights; the other four founding nations, Italy and the three Low Countries tended to go along. Later Britain and Spain and a number of smaller nations joined and the power balance shifted a little, but not really enough to dislodge the old central axis most of the time. Now half of the old Warsaw Pact is in, and Poland in particular has a very big block of votes and is awfully friendly with Britain (home to something like half a million Polish expats). Power has very much shifted towards the periphery.
Now we propose to bring in Turkey. They would be the most populous state in the Union. They'd be more powerful than either France or Germany. C'est intolérable!
Oh, and if Turkey joins then all those 'guest workers' in Germany who've been second-class for decades get full citizenship rights on the spot. And the EU gets to have a border on Iraq, which is plainly about to sink into the most horrible sort of a civil war.