You might still recall a post from the other day which deals with corruption in procurement. It focused on the British public sector. "Corruption," you say? That's how it seems anyway. Newham now rebuts, but the rebuttal doesn't seem to lend much credibiily. (mind our highlights in red)

However, Newham has supplied the INQUIRER with internal studies that it says do demonstrate that its decision to commit to Microsoft was justified. The studies were performed by Socitm, a private public sector consulting firm of which Newham COI Steele is a vice president. the INQUIRER will report on these findings in due course.

Meanwhile, the original MOU is enlightening. As well as claiming the deal would enable Newham to achieve high rankings in Audit Commission assessments, it committed Newham to moving all "competitive technology" to Microsoft, regardless of the feasibility of such a move.

It also required Steele to promote Microsoft software.

See attached file: Memorandum of Understanding.doc

The Inquirer will continue to watch this, so future reports will be interesting. It wasn't long ago that Andy Updegrove wrote about rocking procurement boats, referring to the Massachusetts fiasco. Those who 'dare' to intervene often get bullied and not everyone is impressed. ⬆