A House panel asked the General Accounting...

A House panel asked the General Accounting Office and the government’s chief purchasing agent to investigate charges that federal agencies restrict their computer procurements to favor IBM Corp. The investigation sought by the House Committee on Government Operations follows a complaint last November by six IBM competitors that they have been frozen out of much of the Navy’s multibillion-dollar computer market. The GAO was asked to provide within 60 days an evaluation of the extent that agencies restrict procurements to IBM “code-compatible” systems. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), panel chairman, cited government statistics indicating that IBM holds almost 55% of the Navy’s large-scale computer base, compared to IBM’s 37% share government-wide.