Open standards 'bias' - Microsoft confirms moderator was consultant in its employ

Vendor claims moderator's open standards consultancy work was coincidence

This morning, Computing reported that the Cabinet Office's Open Standards consultation for public sector IT had been compromised by an alleged conflict of interest on the part of the event's moderator.

It was alleged that consultant Dr Andrew Hopkirk, an independent facilitator of the 'Open Standards: Open Opportunities' event, had been working for Microsoft on the same area at the time.

The vendor has confirmed that Hopkirk worked for them on government interoperability matters, but claimed this had no bearing on his participation in the event.

"Dr Hopkirk has worked with Microsoft on an ad hoc consultancy basis," the company told Computing. "In this role, he has provided his views on global government interoperability issues. This work is unrelated to the Cabinet Office's invitation to Dr Hopkirk to moderate the 4 April roundtable."

"We had no part in recommending him for this role. We had no input on the agenda and did not receive any consultancy on the roundtable from Dr Hopkirk - either before or after the event," claimed the vendor.

The event was dogged by controversy, since open source and open standards campaigners said they had not been invited to it, and a heavy vendor presence weighed in in favour of scrapping the government's open standards policy.

The government has announced that the event will be re-run, and the consultation process will be extended by one month. The rescheduled event will be teleconferenced.

"We respect the Cabinet Office's decision and look forward to continued constructive participation in the Open Standards consultation," continued the company.

"Microsoft will make its consultation submission in due course, as will many other organisations, and that submission will be made publicly available."