Google asked the European Union (EU) competition authorities to intervene on the 25th (local time), saying Microsoft’s cloud computing business practices are limiting fair competition.
Google said it filed a complaint with the European Commission for violating Microsoft’s anti-trust laws. Google claims that Microsoft is preventing European customers from moving and changing from Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure to other competitors’ cloud platforms.
Google pointed out, “MS’ cloud licensing conditions limit customers’ transfer to competitors’ clouds or impose penalties of 400%, even though there are no technical barriers.” “MS is the only cloud provider that uses this strategy, causing enormous damage to European companies and governments,” he said.
In response, Microsoft predicted in a statement that the EU Commission would dismiss Google’s complaint, saying, “We expect Google to fail to persuade the European Commission.”
This is not the first time that complaints have been made that Microsoft is abusing its market power in the cloud market. In November 2022, the European Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers Association (CISPE), an industry group whose members include Amazon, submitted a report to the EU Commission, saying that Microsoft’s cloud contract terms violate competition laws. Since then, CISPE dropped its report in July when Microsoft agreed to pay 22 million euros individually.
Aside from the latest case, Microsoft is also under investigation by the Commission regarding the video conferencing application Teams practice. The Commission tentatively concluded in June that the Teams tying practice constitutes a violation of the antitrust law. If the results of the survey are finalized, Microsoft could be fined up to 10 percent of its global annual sales.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
