OREANDA-NEWS. May 04, 2009. Heads of the Departments of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS Russia) met representatives of AMD, IBM and Intel. The main item of the meeting agenda was to devise recommendations for state procurement of microprocessors, reported the press-centre of FAS Russia.

A month ago, the FAS Russia's Expert Council for Developing Competition in Information Technology put forward an initiative to discuss the problems of restricting competition in state and municipal procurement of IT products. The meeting of representatives of the antimonopoly authority and IT companies became the first step in implementing this proposal.

FAS Russia notes that today numerous state and municipal customers, which organize tenders for selecting the supplier of microprocessors for their own needs, set the tender requirements for the equipment in such a manner that it creates advantages to a particular manufacturer.

Such practice violates the existing antimonopoly legislation and cannot be justified in terms of efficiently meeting the state needs. According to the Antimonopoly Service, the equipment requirements set for tenders must ensure fair competition between the vendors for the rights to supply their products under state and municipal contracts. Exceptions can be made if there is a need to procure equipment of a particular brand or model to ensure compatibility of the procured products with the equipment already in use by the agencies.

At the meeting, FAS Russia and vendors of IT equipment decided to form a Working Group, which will include representatives of the vendors of processors that are currently available on the Russian market (IBM, Intel and AMD). The Working Group will draw up a PC processor description that will be neutral to the product (e.g., w/o specifying a brand name) and the so-called "neutral requirements", which will ensure equal access of the vendors to the governmental contracts. The Working Group will also devise the guidelines for setting requirements applicable to computer equipment in general, which can be used by the governmental agencies in organizing procurement tenders.

It is intended that the proposed measures will facilitate healthy competition on the market, which will lead to more efficient and economically justified meeting of the needs of state and municipal customers in computer equipment.