Google Accuses Microsoft of Anti-Competitive Practices in the Cloud

Google has filed a letter to the US FTC to complain about Microsoft’s alleged anti-competitive practices in the cloud. By running its own Windows Server and Office services in Azure without extra payment, Microsoft discourages customers from choosing a cloud competitor.

The Hierarchy of the Cloud Market

Currently, the cloud market is quite hierarchical: AWS is the largest player, Microsoft Azure a close second and Google Cloud is an appropriate distance in third place. The cloud is more popular than ever, with the possible dangers of vendor lock-in as a result. In such a situation, an organization is in fact locked into the ecosystem of a particular provider through previous choices. For example, the range of cloud-based applications may be limited or only the services of the provider itself can run properly on it.

Google’s Complaints

In the letter to the FTC, which was seen by CNBC, Google accuses Microsoft of creating a “lock-in” for customers. It describes a “complex web” of licensing restrictions that would prevent organizations from expanding the enterprise software vendor suite.
Google went one step further: these anti-competitive actions would even put cybersecurity at risk. It points to the SolarWinds hack, which, in addition to Microsoft, also affected Intel, Cisco and Deloitte, among others. In other words, the potential consequences of becoming too dependent on one company can be severe.

A Bigger Problem

When you think of Google, you don’t easily envision an underdog. Especially since it has been fined several times for abuse of power. Nevertheless, the call for a fairer cloud model is crucial. The technology may have been widely adopted, but the adoption of the cloud is young enough that uniformity in the service package and compatibility have not yet been established in concrete terms.
Amazon and Microsoft were already faced with additional investigations from the British competition authorities two months ago. So it is rather that Google throws fuel on the fire with the letter to the FTC rather than setting fire itself.