BECTA and Microsoft have always had an interesting relationship. Back at the start of the year BECTA announced an extension to its Memorandum of Understanding with Microsoft with BECTA’s spokesperson saying, ‘schools who decide to purchase Microsoft software were likely to spend 20-37 per cent less than might have been expected in the absence of the MoU’.

That was about a day before BECTA told schools that they need not upgrade to Vista and that they were reviewing Microsoft’s educational licensing model, focusing on whether it offers value for money and meets the needs of UK educational institutions.

To top their year off BECTA have now reported Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading for ‘alleged anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in the schools software marketplace and in relation to Microsoft's approach to document interoperability’. BECTA has also issued a warning to schools who want to use Microsoft software, advising that they sign up using the Select licensing model not the School Agreement Subscription, until after the conclusion of the OFT investigation.

Will this worry the Seattle behemoth, given that they have been locked in litigation with the EU for several years? The short answer is yes, although Microsoft is probably more focused on paying the EU’s €777m fine.

BECTA may claim to be acting in the best interests of the sector, but don’t forget that in January they themselves were put under the anti-competitive spotlight when Alpha Learning sent a letter of complaint to the European Commissioner for Competition, alleging that BECTA's Learning Platform Framework Agreement broke Official Journal of the European Union procurement guidelines and stifled competition in the UK education software market.

This will make BETT an interesting event in the educational software world, because it was due to coincide with BECTA’s reports on Microsoft’s Academic Licensing Programme, VISTA and Office 2007. It looks as if these may now be delayed until after the OFT investigation.

Finally, it will be interesting to gauge the OFT’s desire and strategy when dealing with Microsoft. So far they have been able to talk and act tough when dealing with competition issues relating to independent schools and local school uniform manufacturers, but the world’s largest software company is a very different sort of political and legal battleground. On its website the OFT’s brief comment says that it will ‘consider the complaint carefully’. What a delightful understatement.

www.becta.org.uk
www.microsoft.com/education
www.oft.gov.uk