Electronics Production |
Four EU-countries favor Intel
The European Commission charged that the governments of France, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden are favoring microprocessors from Intel when procuring PCs, thus violating European Union regulations, global-electronics.net reports.
The Commission believes the countries' respective authorities describe the technical characteristics of the computers they wish to acquire in a discriminatory fashion. The Commission has given each country two months to reply to the charges.
The Commission has identified in computer tender invitations issued by some countries the requirement for "Intel" or "Intel or equivalent" microprocessors. The Commission noted this practice was carried out in Finland by the Universities of Jyvaskyla and Tampere and Hame Polytechnic, and in the Netherlands by Municipality of Amsterdam and the IGEA group.
In Sweden, several municipalities requested specific Intel processors, either requiring the Pentium or Centrino, according to the Commission.
