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May 26, 2009

The Swiss Federal Office for Construction and Logistics is reported as having purchased Microsoft licenses in the order of 42 million Swiss francs (about US $38 million).

Since no public bids were initially tendered, Linux and open source organizations are now requesting a review of the decision, and how Microsoft was unfairly awarded the contract.

The Swiss government had already acted on Microsoft's bid in February but didn't make it public until the May 1, 2009 issue of the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce.

The deal is seen that the existing Microsoft license, maintenance and support agreements for desktops and servers would be extended for three additional years, at an annual cost of 14 million additional Swiss francs.

Now Swiss organizations have submitted a complaint against the contract with the Swiss Federal Courts. The whole thing now is a big mess.

According to the BBL office, a public call for tender was not required in this case, as BBL spokesperson Katja Lunau revealed to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on May 5. She claimed that the "uniqueness of the contract" was based on the lack of a viable competitive product, that competitive bidding was not an option and that the license agreements do not need to be made public.

Her view of the matter has infuriated more than one open source group, and now they want justice.

In the newspaper she is quoted as saying "federal license agreements, which include Microsoft products, have never been publicly advertised. When these agreements were made, today's procurement laws were not yet in force."

The Swiss organization /ch/open fully refuses to accept that argument and has promised to fight the issue with everything it has.

Matthias Stürmer of /ch/open pointed to successful examples of competitive bids in places such as the Swiss canton of Solothurn and even the Swiss Federal Courts themselves.

The names of companies that will join in the complaint have not been published yet but will be in a few days.

According to Stürmer in an interview with Linux New Media, "the larger companies are reluctant, but even the smaller ones are holding back somewhat."

He believes he knows the reason why: "If they are already doing business with the federal government, they fear that they might be at a disadvantage by joining in the complaint." Companies need to decide by May 29, the deadline of the formal complaint process.

What other observers are seeing here is that some of the smaller players might also be afraid of Microsoft, with its almost unlimited financial resources and its army of expensive and powerful lawyers.

Source: /ch/open.

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