Microsoft’s pricing policy questioned in UK

LONDON: The Infrastructure Forum (tif), a body representing some of Britain's
largest companies' technology interests, said on Sunday it has asked the UK
government to investigate Microsoft's software pricing policies.

Tif, whose members include GlaxoSmithKline, BP, Shell and Marks &
Spencer, sent a letter on Friday to Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for
Trade and Industry, asking the government to refer Microsoft to the Office of
Fair Trading (OFT), a tif spokesman told Reuters.

Microsoft's new pricing policy could cost tif's members an extra 880 million
pounds over a typical four-year investment cycle, it said in a statement. The
group said the new pricing structure will result in a jump of almost 100 percent
in the cost of owning Microsoft licenses by forcing them to buy new software
each time they need to upgrade their systems.

Microsoft is due to release the latest version of its Windows operating
system next month.

"This money has not been budgeted for by organizations, so where will it
be found...Does Microsoft realize the damaging impact its pricing policy could
have on British business?" said David Roberts, chief executive of tif. The
group's 98 member organizations together spend around 18 billion pounds on IT
each year.

No-one from Microsoft was immediately available for comment.

"We are disappointed customers have felt the need to take this action. I
can't comment specifically about the OFT because we have not had an
approach," Duncan Reid, Microsoft UK's licensing manager, was quoted by the
Sunday Telegraph as saying.

The Sunday Telegraph said Reid believed the new subscription pricing system
being introduced by Microsoft was designed to simplify upgrades. "This may
represent a price increase over time for only 20 per cent of users," Reid
was quoted as saying.

(C) Reuters Limited 2001.