Despite being strong advocates of competition, European institutions are bound to the US software giant through murky contracts. Any transition to „open source” software, which in theory they encourage, would be too complicated and too expensive, they claim.
The European Commission is currently bound to Microsoft by two contracts. The first, which goes through a provider by the name of Fujitsu, is directly related to the provision of software for €50m. The second, signed directly with Microsoft for €44.7m, is for “support” – ie, maintenance of the software sold.