Agency says Microsoft hurts student interests

By David Lawsky

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - A government agency has told the European Commission that Microsoft Office works poorly with rival software used in schools, hurting the interests of learners, teachers and parents.

Software programmes must meet the same standards to work together but the agency said Microsoft offers only its own "open standard" rather than effective support for Open Document Format (ODF), which the agency said increases choice for users.

Stephen Lucey, executive director of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), said the damage goes beyond hurting competitors.

"Such barriers can also damage the interests of education and training organisations, learners, teachers and parents", Lucey said in a statement.

BECTA complained last year to the Office of Fair Trading and sent a copy to the European Commission this week.

"These are issues we are already looking at in the context of the interoperability investigation we opened in January 2008," said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the Commission.

Microsoft said in a statement it was "deeply committed" to making its own programmes work smoothly with others.

"We have funded the development of tools to promote interoperability between Office 2007 and products based on the (Open Document Format) file format," the company said.  Continued...