Google has made an antitrust complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission (EC).
Filed by Google on September 25, it argues that Microsoft's licensing practices are anticompetitive and lock customers into Microsoft's cloud platform, Azure.
According to Google Cloud's vice president Amit Zavery, Microsoft makes customers pay a 400 percent increase to keep running the Windows Server on rival cloud computing operators.
Those charges commenced on October 1, 2019, when Microsoft updated its licensing terms for "dedicated hosted cloud services."
During the press briefing, Zavery also cited a 2023 study by European cloud industry association CISPE that found European businesses and public sector bodies were paying up to $1.12 billion annually on Microsoft licensing penalties.
In an interview with CNBC, Zavery said: "We would like the cloud market to remain and become very, very vibrant and open for all the providers, including European vendors, vendors like us, AWS (Amazon Web Services), and others. Today, the restrictions do not allow that choice for customers," noting that the restrictions are not technical barriers.
When asked if, by removing the licensing barriers, Google expects to take up more market share, Zavery said: "We don't know whether we will win more market share, but we'll easily have a shot at that business, and we would want to make sure everybody has equal access. And that's the best technology and best commercial offer win the market individual customer requirements."
In July of this year, the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) settled an antitrust complaint against Microsoft for €20 million ($21.7m). Subject to that settlement, Microsoft will develop a product - Azure Stack HCI for European cloud providers (Hosters) - that enables CISPE's members to run Microsoft software on their platforms at equivalent prices to Microsoft's.
Shortly after, reports emerged that Google allegedly offered CISPE €14 million ($15.3m) in cash and €455m ($497.5m) in software licenses to continue its antitrust probe with the EU into Microsoft. Zavery categorically denied these reports during his interview with CNBC.
Zavery argued, however, that the CISPE resolution has not materially changed anything - "If you look at the details around the CISPE settlement, it's really not solving any problem. They didn't change any license capabilities. Customers don't really have a choice of any vendor they want. They cannot run their Windows licenses on GCP, or AWS, or other European vendor cloud services either."
In the UK, the CMA is conducting an investigation into the cloud computing market that kicked off in October 2023. Last week, the CMA extended its deadline for the investigation for four months to further investigate licensing practices - likely those of Microsoft.
The CMA also published summaries of their hearings with Microsoft, AWS, and Google. Both Google and AWS reiterated their problems with Microsoft's licensing practices.
