Google Cloud, a division of Alphabet, has criticized impending agreements with European cloud suppliers and accused Microsoft of engaging in anti-competitive cloud computing tactics, claiming that these do not address more general issues with its license conditions.
Google Cloud Vice President Amit Zavery told reporters that the business has brought up the matter with antitrust agencies and encouraged European Union antitrust regulators to conduct a more thorough investigation in its first public remarks on Microsoft and its European acquisitions.
Microsoft responded by citing a blog post from May of last year in which its president Brad Smith claimed the company “has a healthy number two position when it comes to cloud services, with just over 20% market share of global cloud services revenues.”
According to a Microsoft spokesman who talked to Reuters on Thursday, “We are dedicated to the European Cloud Community and their success.”
The two American software behemoths are fiercely competitive in the multi-billion dollar cloud computing sector, where Amazon and Microsoft are the market leaders.
A person with direct knowledge of the situation told reporters this week that Microsoft has promised to alter its cloud computing policies as part of an agreement with smaller competitors, which will suspend their antitrust concerns in return.
An EU probe will be avoided by the action.
“In the cloud, Microsoft undoubtedly has a highly anti-competitive stance. They are using Windows, Office 365, and their on-premises market dominance to tie together Azure and other cloud services, making it difficult for customers to make a choice “In a late-night interview on Wednesday, Zavery stated.
According to many of our clients, several of these bundling methods make it impossible for them to switch providers due to the pricing and licensing constraints they impose.
According to Zavery, specific agreements made with a number of smaller European cloud companies solely benefit Microsoft.
“They don’t make those terms open to everyone, sort of buying out those that complain. As a result, Microsoft is undoubtedly given an unfair advantage and is tied to the individuals who complained.”
“Whatever they’re offering, there should be terms across the board for everyone, not just for one or two they’ve chosen and picked, and that shows you that they have so much market power they can kind of go and do those things individually,” the author said.
“My advice to the regulators would be to take a comprehensive approach because even if one or two suppliers reach a settlement, the larger issue would not be resolved. And it is the issue that requires our actual attention—not the issues with specific companies.”
The idea that the problem is essentially a dispute between Google and Microsoft was rejected by Zavery.
“Google is not at issue here. I simply want to be really clear about it. It is the cloud. The idea behind the cloud was to give clients more options and an open, flexible approach to install their software so they could operate it anywhere they wanted to lot more easily “he stated
