A European plan to advise governments on software purchases has set off a lobbying battle this summer between the U.S. software giant Microsoft and its rivals Google, I.B.M., Red Hat and Oracle over a set of guidelines that could redefine the competitive landscape for proprietary and open-source software.
The focus is a document called the European Interoperability Framework, a recommendation by the European Commission that national, provincial and local governments in the 27-nation European Union will consult when buying software. Open-source software advocates including Google, International Business Machine, Oracle and
Red Hat, through a lobbying group, are pushing for a strong endorsement of open-source platforms in the document.
The outcome of the debate has the potential to erode Microsoft’s significant public-sector market lead in Europe by encouraging governments to buy open-source software, which currently runs a tiny fraction of government systems. More broadly, the guidelines may influence whether more software in Europe and elsewhere becomes interoperable through the promotion of open standards, or whether it remains a patchwork of private, competing systems that requires a large organization to choose a supplier and stick with it.
The commission is planning to release its recommendation by the end of this year. European governments will spend $15.7 billion on software this year, 19 percent of all software that is purchased on the Continent, according to International Data Corp.
“Europe has the opportunity to become a world leader on this issue,” said Tom Rabon, an executive vice president for corporate affairs at Red Hat, which is based in North Carolina. The company sells open-source software to businesses and governments, including the city of Rotterdam, the Italian Justice Ministry and the French Education Ministry. “If they don’t take this opportunity, then Europe will become a follower,” he said.
Microsoft, which was required to license the confidential interoperability codes for its server software to competitors after losing a 10-year European antitrust suit, is opposing a blanket endorsement of open-source software in the E.U. document, saying it would limit choice because it could discourage public-sector clients from buying proprietary software.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, still makes at least half of its revenue from its proprietary Windows operating system for computers and servers and from its Office desktop application suite, according to its most recent financial report.
“Interoperability is a big issue. It is something that could potentially unseat the status quo,” said Jan Duffy, a research director at International Data in London. “It is fair to say that a majority of the countries in Europe are beginning to explore open-source alternatives in the public sector as they look to potential cost savings.”
John Vassallo, a Microsoft vice president for E.U. legal and corporate affairs in Brussels, said Microsoft had taken significant steps after its European antitrust settlement to incorporate open-source products in its lineup. It has licensed thousands of pages of protocols for its server software, set up joint interoperability labs with two competitors, Sun and Novell, and started
projects like Simple Cloud API, a joint effort with I.B.M. to develop common ways of storing documents and files in cloud computing.
“We are clearly in favor of a mix and having the choice of any software, open or mixed, whatever suits governments,” Mr. Vassallo said. “It’s not putting a particular preference in front of the buyers that will solve the issue of working across borders. It is the opposite, having more choice — then more technical solutions and innovation will be available.”
Google, I.B.M. and Oracle, which in January bought the open-source software pioneer Sun Microsystems, are the main supporters of Open Forum Europe, a group based in Brussels that has been lobbying for an explicit endorsement of open-source software. Graham Taylor, the Open Forum Europe chief executive, says more than 90 percent of European governments end up buying proprietary software products because of inertia, lack of knowledge about open-source alternatives or the fear of switching to a new supplier.
Lobbying by Microsoft and other European companies that make proprietary software, like Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, has also been formidable, Mr. Taylor said. Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent sell proprietary software to governments to, among other things, help run their internal agency telecommunication systems. About 50 companies, groups and
individuals submitted comments to the commission on both sides of the issue.