Google denounces Microsoft before Brussels for imposing its own cloud platform

Brussels, Sep 25 (EFECOM).- The American multinational Google filed a complaint against Microsoft this Wednesday before the European Commission for alleged anti-competitive practices. by imposing its own cloud services platform on its clients, Azure, to the detriment of those of other firms such as Google Cloud or Amazon’s AWS.

In a statement, Google states that the characteristics of Microsoft’s licenses prevent European companies from being able to move their work to their rivals’ cloud platforms despite the fact that “there are no technical barriers to doing so” and, if they do, it applies a 400% price increase.

A spokesperson for the Community Executive has confirmed to EFE the receipt of this complaint and added that the institution’s Competition services “will analyze the case in accordance with the standard procedure.”

Google argues that “Microsoft is the only cloud service provider that uses these tactics” which, it claims, have cost European organizations €1 billion a year, harmed taxpayers, “stifled” competition and generated “greater risk” for organizations “exposed to the inadequate security culture” of their rival.

Furthermore, the Alphabet subsidiary emphasizes that it has tried to address this issue “directly” with Microsoft, which despite these approaches “has only reached specific agreements with those companies that have expressed their concerns.”

“To give voice to the complaints we hear from customers (and the entire industry) and seek a solution that benefits everyone, we are taking a step further and filing a complaint with the European Commission,” explains the technology company.

The department still headed by Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager will now analyze the complaint and open an in-depth investigation if, in line with Google’s arguments, it finds signs of abuse of a dominant position in this sector by Microsoft.

The case, therefore, will foreseeably be managed by the new European Commission that will once again be led by the German Ursula Von der Leyen and in which the person in charge of the Competition portfolio, if it passes the European Parliament’s examination, will be the Spanish Teresa Ribera.

The European Commission has kept an investigation open since June precisely against Microsoft for abuse of a dominant position, through its Teams platform, in a parallel case that Google names in the statement published today.