Alphabet’s Google Cloud has accused Microsoft of anti-competitive cloud computing practices and criticised imminent offers with a number of European cloud distributors, saying these don’t resolve broader considerations about its licensing phrases.
In Google Cloud’s first public feedback on Microsoft and its European offers its Vice President Amit Zavery informed Reuters the corporate has raised the difficulty with antitrust companies and urged European Union antitrust regulators to take a better look.
In response, Microsoft referred to a blogpost in May final yr the place its president Brad Smith mentioned it ‘has a wholesome quantity two place with regards to cloud companies, with simply over 20% market share of worldwide cloud companies revenues’.
“We are committed to the European Cloud Community and their success,” a Microsoft spokesperson informed Reuters on Thursday.
There is intense rivalry between the 2 U.S. tech giants within the fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar cloud computing enterprise, the place Google trails market chief Amazon and Microsoft.
The sector has not too long ago drawn higher regulatory scrutiny, together with within the United States and in Britain, due to the dominance of some gamers and its more and more essential position as an increasing number of corporations shift their companies to the cloud.
Microsoft has provided to alter its cloud computing practices in a take care of a number of smaller rivals which in flip will droop their antitrust complaints, an individual with direct information of the matter informed Reuters this week.
The transfer will stave off an EU investigation.
“Microsoft definitely has a very anti-competitive posture in cloud. They are leveraging a lot of their 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,” Zavery mentioned in an interview late on Wednesday.
“When we talk to a lot of our customers, they find a lot of these bundling practices, as well as the way they create pricing and licensing restrictions, make it difficult for them to choose other providers,” he added.
‘UNFAIR ADVANTAGE’
Zavery mentioned particular person offers struck with a number of smaller European cloud distributors solely profit Microsoft.
“They’re selectively kind of buying out those ones who complain and not make those terms available to everyone. So that definitely makes it an unfair advantage to Microsoft and ties the people who complained back to Microsoft anyway,”
“Whatever they’re offering, there should be terms across for everybody, not just for one or two they’ve chosen and pick, and that shows you that they have so much market power they can kind of go and do those things individually.”
“My point to the regulators would be that they should look at this holistically, even though one or two vendors might settle doesn’t solve the broader problem. And that’s the problem we need to really resolve, not individual vendors’ problems.”
The European Commission declined to remark.
Microsoft nonetheless faces one other EU antitrust grievance from CISPE, whose members embrace Amazon. The commerce group has rejected the Microsoft’s adjustments.
Zavery dismissed the suggestion that the difficulty is merely a spat between Google and Microsoft.
“The question is not about Google. I just want to make it very clear. It’s the cloud. The premise with cloud was to have an open, flexible way to deploy your software and have customers more choices so that they can run their software in any place they choose to in a much more easy way,” he mentioned.
