Google has filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anti-competitive practices in the cloud market.
The move follows Microsoft reaching a settlement with European cloud body CISPE over an antitrust complaint about its cloud computing licensing practices, with the trade group threatening to take the matter to the EC if a solution was not found.
The final settlement agreement between Microsoft and CISPE did not include AWS or Google Cloud.
Google said —in a Blog entry attributed to platform chief Amit Zavery and Google Cloud EMEA president Tara Brady that Microsoft was trying to force customers to use its Azure cloud platform.
“Microsoft's licensing terms either restrict European customers from moving their current Microsoft workloads to competitors' clouds – despite there being no technical barriers to doing so – or impose what Microsoft admits is a staggering 400% price increase,” the publication says.
Google said in a summary of its complaint to the EC shared with ITPro that the agreements reached with CISPE and its members “do not address underlying market-wide licensing issues or resolve ongoing harm to EU customers.”
That's why Google said regulatory intervention is needed, calling for “simple but necessary solutions” to solve the problem: allowing customers with existing Windows Server licenses to use them in any cloud provider at no additional cost; forcing Microsoft to offer the same pricing for Windows Server regardless of cloud provider; and ensuring parity in security and update support for everyone, even if they don't use Azure.
Microsoft's practices are costing Europeans dearly
Google pointed to research originally cited by CISPE indicating that such tactics cost European businesses up to €1 billion a year, stifle innovation and cause security risks, pointing to the CrowdStrike debacle.
“As highlighted by the massive security breach two months ago, Microsoft's lock-in tactics can result in a single point of failure that harms businesses, industries and governments,” the post added.
Google said it had tried to communicate directly with Microsoft and through broader dialogue with the industry, saying it had “advocated on behalf of European customers and partners who fear retaliation in the form of audits or worse if they speak out.”
Since this failed, Google felt compelled to take further action.
“To give voice to the complaints we hear from customers – and from across the industry – and to seek a resolution that benefits everyone, we are now taking the next step: filing a formal complaint with the European Commission,” the post said.
Microsoft responds
When he contacted me for comment, IT ProfessionalMicrosoft sent a written statement: “Microsoft amicably resolved similar concerns raised by European cloud providers, even after Google expected them to litigate further. Having failed to persuade European companies, we expect Google will also fail to persuade the European Commission.”
The EC has yet to decide whether to open a formal investigation into the matter.
In its filing, Google noted that Microsoft had previously been the subject of an EC investigation over its bundling of Teams with Office 365, saying that “the products are new, but the strategies are not.”
Google has faced a problem Long list of EC investigationsand was fined €2.4 billion in 2017 for shopping search practices, €4.3 billion in 2018 for Android searches, and €1.49 billion for online advertising tactics.