UK education agency: Office 2007 still not interoperable

A UK education technology agency has issued another interoperability complaint about Microsoft to the European Commission. The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) confirmed yesterday that it welcomed the EC's most recent antitrust investigation against Microsoft, and that it had handed over its own evidence to the Commission in hopes of supporting a wider investigation.

BECTA reiterated its belief that Microsoft limits document interoperability in Office 2007, which ultimately limits choice. "In the context of the education system this can result in higher prices and a range of other unsatisfactory effects which have a negative impact on wider policy initiatives, including improving educational outcomes, facilitating home school links and addressing the digital divide," the agency wrote in a statement on its website.

This complaint follows a previous submission to the Office of Fair Trading last October, when BECTA voiced concerns over what it considered to be "impediments to effective interoperability" in Office 2007. Specifically, the agency felt that Office needed stronger support for the ODF format and stronger interoperability with Microsoft Works.

In January, the European Commission announced a new antitrust investigation against Microsoft, part of which involved interoperability of Microsoft's products. The European Committee for Interoperable Systems alleged that the new Office Open XML does not play nice with competing products. Microsoft told Ars that it planned full cooperation with the new investigation and that the company was "committed to ensuring that Microsoft is in full compliance with European law and our obligations as established by the European Court of First Instance in its September 2007 ruling."

BECTA says that, during its most recent meeting with the Commission, it laid out key areas of concern that it believes will impact the UK education system. BECTA Executive Director of Strategic Technologies Stephen Lucey also said that BECTA is addressing some of its interoperability concerns directly with the industry as a whole.

The European Commission confirmed today to IDG News Service that it did, indeed, receive BECTA's submission, but that it wasn't treating it as yet another antitrust complaint. "We are already looking into the issues raised in that complaint already and we are not treating it as a formal complaint to us," an EC press officer said.

BECTA has also accused Microsoft of anticompetitive licensing practices in schools. BECTA said that the company's School Agreement program didn't provide sufficient clarity about the buy-out costs if a school were to decide to get out of the program, and that Microsoft's academic subscription setup doesn't allow schools to obtain a perpetual license unless they make a buy-out payment. Microsoft also had an all-or-nothing licensing requirement that required all PCs on campus to be part of the program. Overall, BECTA recommended against the School Agreement program and encouraged schools that were already enrolled in it to consider buyout options.