Open standards are a closed book to ICT procurement across Europe

UKauthorITy - Ambitions to open up ICT procurement to open standards and open source products face an uphill struggle according to new resarch. According to Open Forum Europe, 13% IT tenders illegally specify trademarks when they solicit bids from the private sector.

According to the forum's Procurement Report 2010, its latest annual assessment of procurement practice across the European Union. the "discriminatory practice" of specifying trademarks is rampant.

"The abuse of the tendering process... is just the tip of the iceberg," said Bob Blatchford, chief operating officer of Openforum Europe. "We focused on illegal specification of trademarks but there are many other possible abuses going on that distort the IT procurement process in Europe. In future monitoring reports we will go into greater detail, looking at a broader sample of tenders, focusing on a wider range of abuses," he said.