Cameron’s director of strategy until 2012, Steve Hilton, said that when the Conservative Party proposed shifting government computer systems to open standards, Microsoft began intensive lobbying of MPs.
Open (and free) tools – such as Mozilla’s Firefox, Google Chrome and the Libre Office suite which competes with the better known Microsoft Office – would allow government agencies to end expensive proprietary software contracts.
Hilton said Microsoft had phoned Conservative MPs with Microsoft R&D facilities in their constituencies and said it would shut them down if open software was adopted.
The UK policy is aimed to end the dominant position MS Office currently has on UK government computers.
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