Google has asked Britain's antitrust regulator to take action against Microsoft over unfair licensing terms that make it difficult for customers to use other companies' services.
The news comes just weeks after media regulator Ofcom referred Microsoft and Amazon to the antitrust regulator over their disproportionate dominance of the UK cloud market. In any given month, both together can represent three-quarters of the market, or more.
Microsoft also faces an ongoing battle in Europe, where regulators are investigating whether its previous bundling of Teams with other Office software puts other companies at a disadvantage. Earlier this year, it also faced a similar accusation of cloud dominance in the EU.
Is Microsoft fighting a losing battle?
The company has had no shortage of a number of antitrust suits in recent years, but that's quickly becoming a reality for many tech companies as antitrust regulators begin to ramp up their efforts to increase diversity in the landscape and protect customers.
Google would say this in a letter (seen by Reuters) to the British CMA:
“Microsoft's licensing restrictions in particular leave UK customers with no economically reasonable alternative to using Azure as their cloud services provider, even if they prefer rivals' prices, quality, security, innovations and features.”
Google Cloud Vice President Amit Zavery shared Reuters: “Many of our software and cloud services work together and can also run on AWS or Azure, so you are not limited. If you don't solve this, you will ultimately have fewer cloud providers, innovation will not really happen and investments will shrink.”
Zavery added that Microsoft's licensing terms impose restrictions and fundamentally prevent competition, which is the basis for Google's complaint. Amazon's dominance remains a concern, but the Washington-based company's problem is more of an interoperability problem, which Zavery believes can be solved through discussions among providers.
Ny Breaking asked Microsoft for its thoughts on reports of a new allegation in Britain and the possibility of another investigation. The company did not immediately respond.
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Through Reuters