Microsoft has sued the state of Iowa, saying the state violated its own rules in picking a Microsoft competitor’s bid to outfit state workers with Web-based email and word-processing software.
Tempus Nova, a Denver company that helps businesses and governments switch their email applications to Google’s software, in September won a $7.4 million contract to set up as many as 23,500 Iowa state employees with Google email and productivity software.
Microsoft, which bid for the contract earlier in the year, last week asked an Iowa state court to overturn the decision, saying its entry was improperly rejected early in the process. The company said elements of the successful Tempus Nova bid, meanwhile, didn’t meet some of the qualifications demanded by the state.
“We’d like a fair shot at this contract,” Microsoft said in a statement. “It’s important for Iowa’s security and budget needs that the state follow its own rules for buying technology.”
Want to publish your own articles on DistilINFO Publications?
Send us an email, we will get in touch with you.
A spokesman for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services declined to comment on the lawsuit. The agency’s director, in a February review of the process, dismissed Microsoft’s criticism and said the state properly followed its procurement rules.
Representatives of Google and Tempus Nova didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
The state determined Microsoft failed, along with IBM and four other bidders, to meet a requirement that it demonstrate its experience outfitting government agencies with similar services. Microsoft said in its lawsuit that the company has the required expertise, and currently provides Internet-accessed software services to 20 states and to various federal agencies.
The lawsuit provides a window into the fight between Microsoft and Google in workplace software.
Microsoft, with its Office productivity suite and popular server management tools, has long been a mainstay of corporate and government offices. Google, which packaged its email and Web-based document software under the “Google Apps for Work” umbrella, is seeking to challenge Microsoft’s dominance.
Bidding for public contracts, and the occasional lawsuits that follow, have brought that competition into the open during the last few years. The companies spent years in court over a U.S. Department of the Interior email software contract, a battle Google ultimately won.
In the Iowa suit filed last week, Microsoft’s lawyers criticized the technical side of the Google vendor’s bid for allegedly falling short of the state’s requirements, saying Google software didn’t automatically retain documents and video that could later be subject to state open records laws. Microsoft has previously advertised that its software was designed to help government agencies check off concerns like privacy or stringent records laws.
Google, meanwhile, touts its own set of government customers.
Date: March 24, 2015