BRUSSELS – Google Cloud has accused Microsoft of anti-competitive practices in the cloud computing industry and criticised the tech giant’s licensing terms.
In Google Cloud’s first public comments on Microsoft and its European deals, Vice President Amit Zavery urged European Union antitrust regulators to take a closer look at the company’s deals with several European cloud vendors.
“Microsoft definitely has a very anti-competitive posture in the cloud,” Zavery said.
“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 added that individual deals struck with several smaller European cloud vendors only benefit 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.”
Microsoft has offered to change its cloud computing practices in a deal with a few smaller rivals, which will suspend their antitrust complaints. This move will stave off an EU investigation.
However, Zavery argues that this does not solve the broader concerns about Microsoft’s licensing terms.
“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,” Zavery said.
No rift between Google and Microsoft
Zavery also dismissed the suggestion that the issue is merely a spat between Google and Microsoft.
“The question is not about Google. 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 said.
In response, a Microsoft spokesperson was quoted by Reuters on Thursday, “We are committed to the European Cloud Community and their success.”
Microsoft’s President Brad Smith also previously stated that the company “has a healthy number two position when it comes to cloud services, with just over 20 percent market share of global cloud services revenues.”
The cloud computing industry has recently drawn greater regulatory scrutiny, including in the United States and in Britain, because of the dominance of a few players and its increasingly critical role as more and more companies shift their services to the cloud.
