17^th July 2000

Mr Charles Clarke, M.P.
House of Commons
Westminster
London SW1A 0AA

Dear Mr Clarke,

Microsoft, Intel and other USA companies have monopolies covering large parts of the IT sector, created, enlarged and sustained, through illegal anti-competitive practices. Daily large numbers of consumers are ripped off by them. They feel their only choices are these inferior, overpriced products from the USA. Not only has this been bad for consumers, both home users and business users, but our native IT industry has been effected.

The UK computer industry is a fraction of the size it should be due to government inaction (over the years) in stopping an unlevel playing field. Ten's of thousands of lost jobs (a good proportion highly paid) and billions of pounds in trade deficit are the result.

As IT is one of the worlds largest industries, and is growing, this effects all our lives and the problem should no longer be ignored.

I have written and spoken to OFT to no avail, they hardly seem to know who Microsoft was, and obviously have no intention of fighting Microsoft on behalf of the UK consumer. As you know there is a court case in the USA, however the US government has never shown any sign in the past that it would take effective action, nor will it now, as it is not in their interest to do so. The case against IBM dragged on for 13 years and in the end was dropped. IBM to this day retains its mainframe monopoly. Even if they take action it will not take account of UK interests.

As you are my M.P., I am asking you to do all you can to level the playing field. You could persuade the DTI minister to refer the matter to the Competition Commission directly, as a formal complaint, so that they have to investigate the matter. Ideally the government should put forward a bill to remove unfair I.T. monopolies and put in measures to stop new monopolies forming.

Please level the playing field.