- AWS, Microsoft and Google Witnesses at UK CMA Investigation
- Microsoft’s license conditions and fees appear to be a problem
- Google denies dominance says it’s a challenger
Ever since Britain’s Competition & Markets Authority has investigated the health of the UK sky market, the hyperscalers in question have fought against each other by submitting small graves in official documentation intended to act in their defense.
This time, AW’s Microsoft is slaming for its adverse licensing conditions, which prevent customers from being able to use alternative cloud storage providers without large fees.
“Maybe 50% of the workloads currently running on Azure would move elsewhere, if it were financially possible,” AWS told CMA.
AWS criticizes Microsoft’s license conditions and high fees
Microsoft’s changes in 2019 increased the cost of running Windows Server on Non-Zure Cloud (such as AWS, Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud), making it up to four times more expensive for customers.
These fees also not only affect the customer. “AWS said it should offset the extra costs imposed by Microsoft’s license restrictions, including on the cost of licenses to be purchased and the extra monetary impact of non-price functions,” CMA consultation compassion continues, but “it cannot equalize all these costs in a profitable way.”
Google also agreed with AWS ‘comments in a separate consultation collection, giving an example where a customer chose Azure solely for licensing/commercial reasons despite having an actual preference for Google Cloud.
However, Google may not be on Amazon’s side. The company described itself as a “Challenger Cloud provider and a distant third in size to the two market leaders, AWS and Microsoft.” Still, Google is concerned that Microsoft could dominate the British Sky Market at as little as five years “If nothing changes[s]. “
The defense of his position claimed Microsoft that output fees are not a major problem for customers, adding that even after removing the fees under the EU Data Act, the change remained low.
The result of the investigation is someone’s guess, but the market dominance is clear.
When Ofcom first submitted his complaint to CMA in October 2023, it noted in a report that Microsoft and Amazon accounted for 70-80% of Britain’s ski market in 2022, estimated to be worth £ 7 to 7.5 billion pounds. Google was in third place only 5-10%.
