- Google Cloud has complained about Microsoft’s unreasonable licensing practice
- Rival sky providers are forced to charge for licenses, causing supplier-in
- There’s little done to solve the problem in 12 months, says Google Cloud
Google has published a new blog post reminiscent of the world that it filed a formal complaint to the Europe Commission a year ago over Microsoft’s cloud licensing practice, but that nothing has still been done.
The company claims Microsoft punishes customers running Windows Server and other software on rival clouds, such as its own Google Cloud (GC) as well as AWS and others.
According to the complaint, Microsoft’s licensing rules make up to 5x more expensive to move workloads to competitors, which essentially results in supplier-in.
Google doesn’t let go of his Microsoft complaint
The problem is that Microsoft provides existing on-prems licenses to transfer to Azure, but rivals like Google Cloud require customers to buy new licenses, which adds costs.
Britain’s Competition and Market Authority (CMA) has already considered Microsoft’s policy limiting cloud elections, but it has not imposed on any remedies. America’s Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also launched its own antitrut study in 2023.
GC VP for government affairs and public politics Marcus Jadotte and GC Europe Senior Director of Government Affairs and Public Policy Giorgia Abelino noted: “Restrictive Sky license has caused a huge amount of damage to the global economy in the last year.”
When he talked about “the ongoing risk of passivity”, Jadotte and Abelino accused Microsoft of acquiring customers for “two or even three times that rate” of competitors.
In an attempt to strengthen its case and accelerate actions, the Google Cloud blog claims that governments could unlock € 1.2 trillion in additional EU BNP at the end of the decade, saving up to € 450 billion a year in achieved productivity.
Microsoft has already settled similar concerns with European Sky providers, with a spokesman for the company that tells Techradar Pro: “Microsoft settled in amiceable similar concerns raised by European cloud providers, even after Google hoped they would continue to court. After failing to persuade European companies, we expect Google to persuade the Europe Commission in the same way.”
