Scandalous purchase of the domestic office software for officials took place. Lanit and Softline will deliver it

2020

The Ministry of Digital Affairs of Russia proposes to abandon centralized purchases of office and antivirus software

On November 12, 2020, the Ministry of Digital Affairs of Russia published on the portal regulation.gov.ru a draft resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation "On Amending the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of June 8, 2018 No. 658 (hereinafter - PP 658) "On centralized procurement of office software, budget accounting software, as well as information security software" ^[1]658.

The essence of the proposed changes to PP 658 is set out in the explanatory note to the draft resolution - in fact, the Ministry of Digital Arts proposes to remove from PP 658 all provisions related to centralized procurement of office software and software in the field of information security (in this area last year, only purchases of antivirus software were provided)and remove all references to the Ministry of Digital Affairs of Russia as the authorized federal body regulating the relevant purchases and directly implementing them. More details here.

2019

Re-purchase of office software

Selection of winners

On December 17, 2019, the Ministry of Digital Development held three auctions for the supply of domestic office software for FOIV with a total initial price of 756 million rubles. According to the official public procurement portal, in the largest lot with a starting cost of 296 million rubles, Lanit was chosen the winner, reducing the price by 1.5%. The competition for him was the company "Tegrus."

The same company was chosen as the winner at the auction with an initial price of about 217 million rubles, bypassing the Tegrus application. On the public procurement portal it is indicated that in this auction there were three participants with a maximum price reduction of 4.5%.

In a purchase with an initial price of 244 million rubles, Softline Projects became the winner, offering a price 0.5% lower than the maximum. Lanit also fought for this tender.

Dmitry Sorokin, head of the sales development department of the domestic Softline software, told TAdviser that their company will supply the Ministry of Digital Development with a package application. "P7 Office

Lanita did not specify to TAdviser what software their company will supply. The Ministry of Communications refused to answer this question, citing 44-FZ, which establishes a certain procedure for disclosing procurement information.

According to the source TAdviser, familiar with the plans of the procurement organizers in the ministry, the supply of office software for FOIV will include the product "MyOffice." This is the second office package from the register of domestic software, in addition to R7-Office, which meets the regulatory requirements for delivery to government agencies. In the developer of "MyOffice" - the company "New Cloud Technologies" - could not tell TAdviser anything concrete about the possible supply of their software to the Ministry of Digital Development.

According to the public procurement portal, there were no complaints to the FAS about tenders for the purchase of office software this time (see the history below for previous complaints). According to TAdviser, ALMIs Partner, whose office package was excluded from the register of domestic software three days before the first procurement and as a result of whose complaint to the FAS the purchase was repeated, does not plan to appeal the new results.

Tenders announced

On December 8, 2019 the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media announced three new tenders for purchase of office software for FOIV with the maximum prices of the contract about 296 million rubles^[2], 244 million rubles^[3] and 216 million rubles^[4]. The total volume of these contracts with accuracy to the ruble coincides with the volume of a single purchase announced by the department earlier, where the FAS revealed violations in the tender documentation.

As part of the purchase of 295 million rubles, the department plans to purchase a total of 87.054 thousand office software licenses, the vast majority of which are intended for the Federal Tax Service. As part of the purchase for 244 million rubles, the Ministry of Communications acquires 71.860 thousand licenses for a large number of departments. The largest recipients here are the Federal Treasury and the FCS. And the purchase of 216 million rubles involves the supply of 63.761 thousand licenses with the largest recipients represented by Rosstat and Rosreestr. Collectively, this is more than 222 thousand licenses.

The Ministry of Communications needs to purchase office software in a short time

The end of applications for participation in all three tenders is indicated on December 16, and the term for transferring licenses is ten working days from the conclusion of the contract, but no later than December 30, 2019.

Within each delivery, it is required to transfer four different sets of software to the Ministry of Communications. At the same time, in accordance with the earlier decision of the FAS, the requirement for the mandatory supply of office products from two software manufacturers was removed from the tender documentation.

Splitting the mega-procurement into three separate ones potentially provides an opportunity for a wider range of market players to participate in the auction, since, due to the smaller volume of individual purchases, a smaller amount of money from suppliers is also required to secure the bid.

It is noteworthy that before the announcement of three separate tenders, the Ministry of Communications first made changes to the documentation of the original mega-tender, removing from there the requirement to provide solutions simultaneously from two software manufacturers. As a result, the department could not quickly comment on its decision to split the purchase into three parts.

According to the results of the consideration of the complaint of which the FAS issued an order to the Ministry of Communications to change the tender documentation and re-conduct the auction, ALMIs Partner previously explained to TAdviser that due to the suspension of this mega-tender they expect to have time to challenge the decision to exclude their product - AlterOffice - from the register of domestic software and also take part in it. To do this, the company now has very little time.

We hope for a further constructive reaction and a positive decision of the Ministry on our request to restore the product in the registry. This will contribute to the development of the industry as a whole and competition in procurement, "said Mikhail Lebedev, chairman of Almi Partner.

He added that their company had already filed a corresponding petition.

The purchase was prepared for about two years, and when it was finally launched, the "offended" player came out and finally began to put sticks in the wheels, "says TAdviser about his vision of the situation with the mega-tender of the Ministry of Communications, Alexey Bogomolov director of the business direction of corporate solutions for the public sector of the Group of Companies - "Lad" partner of" New Communication Technologies "(developer" P7 Office"). - The division of procurement into three separate Ministry of Communications eliminated violations identified by the FAS. Now the main thing is the result. We're waiting for him.

He added that if you imagine yourself as a customer, then it will immediately become clear "what kind of load lies on them." On the one hand, they need to show the result of the work - to purchase a Russian office, and on the other, they must comply with all the regulations that regulate procurement activities. Sometimes these acts can contradict each other, said Alexei Bogomolov.

FAS found the complaint about the purchase justified

On December 4, 2019, the FAS decided on the complaint of ALMIs Partner, the developer of the AlterOffice, to purchase office software for FOIV from the Ministry of Communications. The complaint was found to be substantiated. In the actions of the Ministry of Communications, the regulator found a violation of the requirements for describing the object of purchase presented by the law on the contract system, and ordered a change in the tender documentation.

One of the requirements for the contractor, according to the tender TA, is to ensure the presence of office packages at the same time from at least two manufacturers included in the unified register of Russian software. The " ALMIs Partner" argued that this enlarges the formation of the lot, as it encourages a potential procurement participant to acquire rights to the software from a third party. If the procurement participant is a software manufacturer, such a requirement obliges him to contact the competing manufacturer for rights to transfer the software.

FAS recognized the substantiated complaint "ALMIs Partner" "(photo - fas.gov.ru)"

The Federal Antimonopoly Service at the commission established that only two products from the register comply with the totality of the established TA requirements: MyOffice and R7-Office, the rights holders of which are New Cloud Technologies and New Communication Technologies, respectively.

When compiling the tender documentation, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media relied on government decree No. 658 on centralized procurement of office software, ordering FOIVs to carry out work until 2020 to ensure compatibility of the software of their information systems with office software of at least 2 different copyright holders.

The FAS notes that this work is entrusted to FOIVs, and not to the customer of the software, and that at the meeting of the commission, representatives of the department did not provide evidence confirming that the provision of services for the transfer of non-exclusive rights to office software is feasible only if they are provided simultaneously from two manufacturers.

Different departments were supposed to provide different sets of software as part of the purchase - only four options. The regulator's commission also compared the volumes of four software packages and found that, for example, one of the sets is only 3% of the total transferred rights. This involves the encumbrance of a procurement participant to purchase software licenses from another manufacturer to fulfill a small amount of contract execution, FAS decided.

During the consideration of the complaint, the Ministry of Communications has already held an auction and issued the final protocol. Two bids were received at the auction, and the decrease in the initial price of the contract was 2%. However, the names of the participants in the published documents following the results of the auction are not indicated, and the final protocol posted on the official public procurement portal does not open. The Ministry of Communications did not specify TAdviser the names of the auction participants.

In any case, according to the results of the consideration of the complaint, ALMIs Partner issued an order to the Ministry of Communications to cancel the protocol for considering applications for participation in an electronic auction, bring the documentation in accordance with the law and appoint new dates for the end of the acceptance of applications and the auction.

The Ministry of Communications in response to the TAdviser request for a new planned auction date reported that they plan to conduct all purchases by the end of 2019.

In "ALMIs Partner," whose product AlterOffice was excluded from the register of domestic software three days before the announcement of this tender, the Ministry of Communications, and, accordingly, was no longer obviously suitable for participation in this tender, previously told TAdviser that they filed a complaint in order to buy time. The company hoped to have time to appeal the decision to exclude their company from the register and take part in the re-auction. After the FAS issued the decision of the ALMIs Partner management board, Mikhail Lebedev refrained from predicting whether their company would have time to appeal the decision to exclude from the register on time.

It is noteworthy that this company filed a complaint about the purchase of office software of the Pension Fund, announced on November 26. However, in this case, the FAS, according to ALMIs Partner, on December 4 found it unfounded. As of December 5, this FAS decision has not yet been published.

New Cloud Technologies told TAdviser that they did not comment on the regulator's actions, adding that the company itself did not participate in this purchase. It develops software, and distributes its solutions to more than 1.3 thousand partner companies.

We would be glad if ALMIs Partner continued to pursue such a policy and systematically appealed against purchases of foreign software worth billions of rubles. These are much larger volumes than were indicated in the centralized purchase. According to TAdviser, the volume of only 50 largest public purchases of Microsoft, announced in Russia from January 1 to December 17, 2018, is 7.5-8.5 billion rubles, "said Dmitry Komissarov, CEO of New Cloud Technologies, in a conversation with TAdviser.

The Lad Group of Companies, which is a partner of New Communication Technologies (developer of R7-Office), notes that everyone has been waiting for this tender of the Ministry of Communications on the market for a long time. And the actions of ALMIs Partner, according to Alexei Bogomolov, director of the business direction of corporate solutions for the Lad public sector, slow down the timely transition of government agencies to domestic office software.

In a conversation with TAdviser, Bogomolov recalled that in 2018, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev proposed introducing criminal liability for disrupting public procurement on national projects. According to the representative of Lad, the story of complaints about the tender of the Ministry of Communications is just the case where this initiative would be useful.

Suspension of the tender due to complaints to the FAS

On November 27, 2019, a few days before the scheduled date for summing up the auction, the tender of the Ministry of Communications for the purchase of 222 thousand office software licenses totaling more than 757 million rubles was suspended. The agency planned to centrally purchase software for 45 federal executive bodies. The purchase was suspended by order of the FAS until it examined complaints received almost simultaneously from several companies. They challenge certain provisions of the technical requirements contained in the procurement documents, and also question the compliance of the agency with the principles of fair competition.

Excluded but non-surrendering player

According to the register of complaints on the official public procurement portal, a total of 11 complaints were received by the FAS from 6 companies^[5]. The first, on November 26, was done by ALMIs Partner, the developer of the AlterOffice office package. The consideration of her complaint will take place on December 2.

Three days before the announcement of the tender, the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media was excluded from the register of domestic software following a meeting of the Expert Council on Software at the Ministry of Communications. Experts considered that AlterOffice is a minimally castomized copy of not the most current version of the freely distributed software. LibreOffice The inclusion of this software in the register in the spring of 2019 was due to an insufficiently high-quality examination, according to those conducting this, the last, examination.

ALMIs Partner believes that the exclusion of their product from the register was due to unfounded arguments and it is no coincidence - precisely on the eve of the tender. After the exclusion of the AlterOffice, two products corresponding to the requirements of the Ministry of Communications remained in it - "MyOffice" and. "" P7 Office There is still an office package in the registry, "Zircon" but it does not yet meet the additional requirements for office software established by order governments and necessary for participation in public procurement.

Due to complaints received, the FAS ordered to suspend the mega-purchase of office software of the Ministry of Communications "(photo - RIA Novosti, Mikhail Fomichev)"

ALMIs Partner plans to seek the return of its product to the register, as well as participation in the purchase of the Ministry of Communications. ALMIs Partner Management Board Mikhail Lebedev explained to TAdviser that the suspension of the tender gives the company extra time to have time to contact the FAS to protest the decision to exclude AlterOffice from the register and eventually get the opportunity to fully take part in the purchase.

After all, it is for this that we are developing our product - to provide office software to federal executive authorities, "Lebedev said in a conversation with TAdviser.

He added that in addition to the FAS, their company also plans to appeal to the prosecutor's office due to the exclusion of AlterOffice from the register.

Mikhail Lebedev told TAdviser that since May 2019, AlterOffice successfully passed a total of 6 independent technical examinations at the Voskhod Research Institute. They, like the last examination at the expert council, were carried out as a result of appeals from competitors to the ministry, he claims. It is known, for example, about the appeal regarding the AlterOffice to the department by New Cloud Technologies, the developer of the MyOffice office package.

According to all these examinations, positive conclusions were issued at the Voskhod Research Institute. According to Lebedev, he conducted two more examinations, Rospatent which also did not find inconsistencies with patent and copyright law.

Mikhail Lebedev, citing lawyers from his company, also told TAdviser that four of the legal entities from whom the FAS received complaints about the tender of the Ministry of Communications are ALMIs Partner dealers. He found it difficult to give names in memory on the move. In total, the company has more than 200 dealers in Russia, Lebedev added.

The essence of the complaint of the creators AlterOffice

ALMIs Partner argues in its complaint that the requirements of the procurement documents infringe on its rights as a potential participant in the procurement. In violation of the requirements of Law No. 44-FZ, the customer established requirements limiting the number of procurement participants and not related to the characteristics of the procurement object, the company is confident. According to the TA, it is required to supply 4 office packages for FOIV.

At the same time, the supplier is obliged to provide at least two manufacturers corresponding to all specified parameters of the software. ALMIs Partner believes that this requirement does not apply to the functional, technical or qualitative characteristics of the SOFTWARE, and also does not characterize the qualification level of the supplier of the goods. It entails a restriction on the number of procurement participants, the developers of the AlterOffice are convinced.

In the present case, the holding of a single auction for 4 office packages with the establishment of a requirement for the supply of software by at least two manufacturers, in our opinion, is aimed at creating preferential conditions for one of the procurement participants who has an agreement with a rival manufacturer on the supply of software for its production, the ALMIs Partner complaint says.

At the same time, if only two software that meet the requirements for the object of purchase is presented and can be delivered on the market, then the customer with the above requirement of the auction documentation will create a condition of "imaginary competition" in order to ensure the participation of at least two auction participants who will not compete in good faith and decrease at the price of the contract, the authors of the complaint add.

Taking into account the complaints received by the FAS, the purchase was suspended. The Ministry of Communications of Russia does not agree with the complaints submitted and will defend a previously determined course on the development of the competitive market for domestic software at the FAS of Russia, TAdviser told the Ministry of Communications regarding the complaints received.

I must say that the company "New Cloud Technologies" officially announced five authorized distributors (Axoft, Merlion, Mont, "1C," Treolan). In November, Merlion also became a distributor and P7 Office, the second of two possible office packages to be purchased as part of the mega-purchase of the Ministry of Communications. Thus, at least Merlion's reseller partners, which number more than a dozen, can be fully submitted to the competition of the Ministry of Communications.

"Nizhny Novgorod Support Group"

In addition to ALMIs Partner, according to the register of complaints, five more companies applied to the FAS on November 26-27. ALMIs Partner is based in Nizhny Novgorod, and most of the other complainants, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, also have connections with Nizhny Novgorod. These are the companies of Chestniy Soft LLC, Levant LLC, Vesta LLC, Sistema-R LLC and Rigel LLC.

Each of these companies filed two complaints at once. Thus, together with ALMIs Partner, there are a total of 11 complaints. What is noteworthy, the complaints of all these five companies look extremely similar.

1. Honest Soft LLC (TIN 1327035204). Her complaints were the first after the ALMIs Partner complaint. At the same time, the company was registered very recently - October 28, 2019 in Saransk. In the first complaint from this company, the argument is made that only one software product - "My Office" meets the requirements of the TA in the tender documentation. The second complaint concerns excessive, in the terminology of the authors of the text - "impressive," the size of the security of the tender and the execution of the contract. The phrase "As well as the amount of security in this auction is impressive..." is present in the corresponding complaints and four other companies.

2. LLC Levant (TIN 6686115003). Company from Yekaterinburg, created in April 2019. Like all other members of the "support group," this company also filed two complaints with the FAS at once, which both materially and textually look like clones of Honest Software complaints, up to and including "an impressive amount of security."

3. Vesta LLC (TIN 5257178362). A company from Nizhny Novgorod, that is, from there, from where ALMIs Partner. It has existed since 2017. The average number of employees in 2018 is 1 person. In July 2019, the only owner changed in the company: Arapova Elena Valentinovna became him and part-time director. According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, she is the director and founder of another company - Almor LLC, registered in Saransk in a neighboring house with the one where Honest Software LLC is registered. And the complaints of "Vesta" look like clones of complaints of "Honest Software" and "Levant."

4. Sistema-R LLC (TIN 7734397289). She also filed two complaints with the FAS, "cloned" from the complaints of "Honest Software," "Levant" and "Vesta." The legal address of the company is in Moscow, however, in both complaints, the Nizhny Novgorod subscriber box is indicated as the return address.

5. LLC Rigel (TIN 5257178108). She also filed 2 complaints with the FAS - clones of complaints from the previous four complainants. At the same time, the company is in the process of liquidation from September 2019 and in the near future should be excluded from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities as an inactive organization. This is not the first time this has happened. Registered in December 2017, Rigel LLC in May 2018 received the status "in the process of liquidation," which was changed to "active" in August 2018, which lasted exactly a year, until September 2019. During this time, 3 enforcement proceedings were opened and completed against Rigel due to the inability to locate the debtor. And Rigel's legal address is exactly the same as Vesta.

Publishing a Purchase

On November 14, 2019, the Ministry of Communications of Russia announced an auction for the supply of Russian office software for federal executive authorities. Total amount of purchase is 757 million rubles^[6].

Ministry of Communications buys Russian office software for 45 federal departments

Centralized delivery of office packages ON will cover 45 federal departments. In total, over 222.7 thousand products with a validity of 1 year should be delivered. At the same time, for 181.1 thousand packages of programs, the license should begin within 10 days from the date of signing the transfer certificate, for the remaining 41.6 thousand licenses - from January 1, 2020.

Most office products are required by the Federal Tax Service - almost 87 thousand. Large deliveries are also planned to the Federal Treasury (more than 30 thousand), to the Federal Customs Service (29 thousand), to Rosstat (18.5 thousand) and Rosreestr (15.5 thousand).

According to the documentation of the Ministry of Communications, 4 types of office packages are provided. All must include a text and table editor, presentation editor, and file manager software. Additionally, some packages may include a mail application, organizer, viewer, and communication software.

The customer does not specify the specific name of the purchased software. As of November 2019, there are several office packages in the registry of domestic software. In particular, these are the products of MyOffice, P7-Office, AlterOffice and Zircon Office.

The license provider will be selected on December 3rd.

Simultaneously with the purchase of Russian office software, the Ministry of Communications is conducting an auction for the supply of antivirus tools. It involves the transfer of over 334 thousand licenses to federal authorities.

According to the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 658 of June 8, 2018, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Communications is entrusted with the authority to purchase office software and IP solutions for federal executive bodies, which are managed by the Government of the Russian Federation.

Recall that in 2018, a schedule for the transition to a cloud system for maintaining budget accounting and calculating wages was also established for federal executive bodies. In total, the centralization of accounting will affect 50 FOIVs. On May 29, 2019, speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference, [2] the deputy head Federalnogo kaznacheystvaaleksandr Albychev told about the first results of this project .

Notes