Google Cloud has publicly accused Microsoft of engaging in anti-competitive cloud computing practices and has criticized the software giant’s imminent deals with several European cloud vendors, stating that these deals do not solve broader concerns about its licensing terms. Google Cloud’s Vice President Amit Zavery told Reuters that the company had raised this issue with antitrust agencies and urged European Union antitrust regulators to take a closer look. In response, Microsoft referred to a blog post in May last year where its president Brad Smith said it ‘has a healthy number two position when it comes to cloud services, with just over 20 per cent market share of global cloud services revenues.’
With Amazon being the market leader, Google and Microsoft are competitors in the multi-billion-dollar cloud computing business. Recently, the cloud computing sector has faced greater regulatory scrutiny, including in the United States and in Britain, due to the dominance of a few players and its increasingly critical role as more and more companies shift their services to the cloud.
Zavery said that Microsoft is leveraging its dominance in the on-premise business as well as Office 365 and Windows to tie Azure and the rest of cloud services and make it hard for customers to have a choice. According to Zavery, Microsoft’s bundling practices and the way it creates pricing and licensing restrictions make it difficult for customers to choose other providers. Zavery also criticized Microsoft’s selective buying out of smaller European cloud vendors that complain, which he believes gives Microsoft an unfair advantage and ties those who complain back to Microsoft anyway.
Zavery has called on European regulators to look at the issue holistically, stating that settling with one or two vendors doesn’t solve the broader problem that needs to be resolved. Google Cloud’s accusations come after Microsoft offered to change its cloud computing practices in a deal with several smaller rivals that would suspend their antitrust complaints. However, Microsoft still faces another EU antitrust complaint from CISPE, whose members include Amazon, which has rejected Microsoft’s changes. The European Commission declined to comment on the matter.
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