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Dutch govt ends exclusive MS upgrade talks (Register)

[Posted December 23, 2004 by cook]

The register covers a policy flip-flop by the Dutch government concerning software upgrades on its 260,000 Microsoft-based computers. "Despite a unanimous vote by the Dutch parliament in 2002 to adopt open standards and open source software, Microsoft recently opened exclusive negotiations with the Dutch government regarding a major software upgrade. After Dutch IT weekly newspaper Automatisering Gids leaked details about the 157m ($210m) deal, Dutch MPs demanded an explanation as to why there hadn't been a mandatory public bid."

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Posted Dec 23, 2004 17:41 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

Reminds me of the time the Chicago Transit Authority people got caught rigging a bid by specifying that the busses must meet specifications that only one manufacturer could meet, some of which specifications were extremely arbitrary.

It was too bad, too, because those busses were quite nice. But in the end, it turned out to be just deserts, because those busses couldn't be retrofitted to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act...