Officials urge vendor-neutral IT purchases

The Obama administration’s senior IT and procurement officials today reminded agencies to buy IT without vendor names in mind after a judge ruled this week that the Interior Department inappropriately chose to buy email and desktop software from Microsoft instead of Google.

When the government buys software and computers, “it is important that those purchases be fair, neutral and based on an objective assessment of relevant criteria,” Victoria Espinel, intellectual property enforcement coordinator, wrote this afternoon on the White House’s blog. Read more.