A collection of Microsoft Corp.’s rivals including OVH and Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS fired off an antitrust complaint to European Union watchdogs alleging the software giant uses unfair licensing practices to lure customers in the region to its cloud infrastructure.
(Bloomberg) — A collection of Microsoft Corp.’s rivals including OVH and Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS fired off an antitrust complaint to European Union watchdogs alleging the software giant uses unfair licensing practices to lure customers in the region to its cloud infrastructure.
CISPE, a European cloud-company policy group, said it’s calling for a probe into Microsoft’s business model before some companies are shut out of the market, causing “material harm to customers.” It’s the fourth current complaint targeting Microsoft at the Brussels-based European Commission.
There is fear among CISPE members, who are “very concerned about the potential pushback from Microsoft,” Francisco Mingorance, executive secretary at the group, said by phone. “Some have told us that Microsoft could effectively turn off half of their business at the click of a finger.”
Bowing to months of pressure from rival cloud providers, Microsoft earlier this year announced changes to its software licensing terms to make it easier for customers of rival cloud-service companies in Europe to move their existing software to these other networks. The changes took effect on Oct. 1.
Read More: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington: Fully Charged
But CISPE called the changes a “smokescreen” that fail “to tackle the harms to consumers and providers” that have already been outlined in a previous complaint to the EU.
Microsoft, whose $69 billion takeover bid for Activision Blizzard Inc. was earmarked on Tuesday for an in-depth EU review, said in a statement the licensing changes it had recently introduced “give customers and cloud providers around the world even more options for running and offering our software in the cloud.”
It said it was “committed to addressing valid licensing concerns and support a competitive environment where all providers can thrive.”
The EU commission on Wednesday said it’s been informed by the group about the complaint and that it “will assess it based on its standard procedures.”
(Updates with responses starting in third paragraph)
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
