(The Washington Put up) — Google mentioned Wednesday (September 25) it has filed an antitrust criticism in opposition to Microsoft within the European Union, accusing Microsoft of utilizing its dominance in enterprise software program to lock purchasers into its Azure cloud companies.
The search big argues Microsoft is violating European competitors legal guidelines by charging punitive charges for its prospects to switch tasks working on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to a competing cloud service. In a weblog publish, Google mentioned Microsoft’s techniques are costing European companies a minimum of 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) per yr and stifling competitors within the profitable cloud companies business.
Google’s criticism, which may set off an inquiry by Europe’s competitors fee, is the newest salvo in a long-running rivalry between two of the world’s largest tech companies. Over time, Google and Microsoft have every repeatedly accused the opposite of being a monopoly, with blended outcomes.
Google competes with Microsoft in a number of areas. Google’s search engine is much extra well-liked than Microsoft’s Bing, however Microsoft has an even bigger enterprise promoting cloud companies and enterprise software program similar to Microsoft Phrase. Google has lengthy tried and did not catch as much as Amazon’s and Microsoft’s cloud companies, which herald billions of {dollars} a yr for the businesses and are central to the push to roll out synthetic intelligence know-how. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Put up.)
In an announcement, Microsoft mentioned it had amicably settled comparable considerations raised by European cloud suppliers, referring to a deal struck this yr with an business affiliation representing Amazon’s cloud enterprise and a number of other smaller gamers. The smaller firms withdrew their criticism in change for Microsoft agreeing to make its tech work extra seamlessly with these firms’ platforms. Amazon was not a part of the deal, and Google criticized the settlement in its weblog publish Wednesday.
Microsoft urged Google was trying to revive that earlier criticism. “Having failed to influence European firms, we anticipate Google equally will fail to influence the European Fee,” the assertion mentioned. The European Fee, which enforces E.U. legal guidelines, didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
In 2011, Microsoft filed a criticism with European regulators accusing Google of monopolizing internet search and promoting. Google first went public with its accusations in opposition to Microsoft within the cloud sector with a letter to the US Federal Commerce Fee final yr.
Microsoft is already dealing with a separate antitrust investigation in Europe over its apply of bundling its chat and videoconferencing service, Groups, with its different well-liked enterprise merchandise. That inquiry stems from a 2020 criticism filed by Slack, owned by cloud enterprise software program supplier Salesforce.
Microsoft’s cloud practices are additionally underneath investigation by the UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority.
Google is dealing with a number of antitrust assaults in the US. A federal decide dominated in August that Google has an unlawful monopoly in search. The corporate can be on trial defending a case introduced by the US authorities accusing it of utilizing anticompetitive practices within the promoting know-how market.
Cloud computing has grow to be a key income and revenue for US tech giants, together with Microsoft, Google and Amazon. A growth in AI know-how is anticipated to drive much more demand for these companies, with the businesses spending billions to increase the information facilities that energy cloud platforms.
