Microsoft’s cloud business is under EU antitrust security, with the bloc launching “an informal probe” of Microsoft Azure.
According to Bloomberg, via Thurrott, the investigation is unrelated to one involving Teams being bundled with Office. Instead, documents seen by Bloomberg indicate EU regulators are looking at whether Microsoft is “abusing its access to business-sensitive information belonging to cloud firms it has commercial dealings with. EU antitrust enforcers want to know whether Microsoft then leverages such confidential information to compete with cloud-service providers on the market, said two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.”
Thurrott reports that this latest investigation was sparked by competitors’ complaints, much as the Teams investigation was.
“Microsoft uses its dominance in productivity software to direct European customers to its own Azure cloud infrastructure to the detriment of European cloud infrastructure providers and users of IT services,” CISPE alleged. “The market share of European cloud infrastructure providers has halved in the last 5 years even as the overall market has grown. Microsoft’s share of the same market has outperformed all other players who kept stable market shares, growing at the expense, we believe, of European providers, by more than 800%. If allowed to continue, these abuses will inevitably lead to the demise of a European cloud infrastructure sector.”
Microsoft has done much to distance itself from its Big Tech rivals and the antitrust scrutiny they are drawing. Despite its efforts, however, the company clearly has more work to do if it wants to maintain its image of being willing and eager to proactively work with regulators.
