The Microsoft logo is on display at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 26, 2024.
Charlie Perez | Noor Photos | Getty Images
Microsoft A Spanish startup complained to Spanish antitrust regulators about its cloud practices on Tuesday, the latest grievance over its fast-growing cloud computing services after a trade group filed a complaint with the European Union.
The US tech giant ranks second in cloud computing, lagging the market leader Amazon But as the range of generative AI capabilities supported by OpenAI technology attracts business users, this gap is expected to narrow rapidly.
The Spanish Startups Association, which represents more than 700 startups in Spain, cited some alleged anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in recent years.
“Not only does Microsoft use its dominance of the operating system (Windows) and traditional productivity software (Microsoft Office, Windows Server, SQL Server) markets to force adoption of its Azure cloud, but it also creates artificial barriers that limit fair competition for startups. capabilities,” said the complaint seen by Reuters.
“These practices include barriers to data portability or contractual conditions that limit competition in software licensing, preventing the free choice of these service providers and reducing the choice and flexibility that startups need to remain resilient, innovative and growing,” the document states. say.
Microsoft defends its cloud practices.
A spokesperson said: “Microsoft provides our customers with choice and flexibility to switch to other cloud providers at no charge, and our licensing terms enable our customers and other cloud providers to run and run on every cloud. Provides Microsoft software.
“We will work with the Spanish Entrepreneurship Association and learn more about its concerns.”
The association called on Spain’s competition regulator to investigate and take urgent measures to ensure competition in the market.
Carlos Mateo, president of the Spanish Entrepreneurship Association, said in a statement: “We believe that all companies should be able to compete on a level playing field so that no one is left behind, either as a customer or as a company providing this technology. behind.
In November last year, European cloud infrastructure service providers, including Amazon, complained to EU antitrust regulators about Microsoft’s new contract terms and other practices implemented on October 1, saying that these practices were harming the European cloud computing ecosystem.
The European Commission has asked cloud rivals about Microsoft’s requests for customer data as part of its investigation, while the UK Competition and Markets Authority is also probing the industry.
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