Search engine giant Google has accused Microsoft of anti-competitive cloud computing practices and criticized impending deals with several European cloud vendors, saying these does not solve broader concerns about its licensing terms.
Google Cloud’s Vice President Amit Zavery, made a public comments on Microsoft and its European deals saying that it has raised the issue with antitrust agencies and urged European Union antitrust regulators to pay detailed attention.
responding, Microsoft president Brad Smith, said it has a healthy number two position when it comes to cloud services, with just over 20 percent market share of global cloud services revenues’.
There has been an intense rivalry between these two tech giants in the fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar cloud computing business
Zavery mentioned in an interview late on Wednesday that Microsoft definitely has a very anti-competitive posture in cloud and are leveraging a lot of their dominance in the cloud services business making it hard for customers to have a choice.
“When we talk to a lot of our customers, they find a lot of these bundling practices, as well as the way they create pricing and licensing restrictions, make it difficult for them to choose other providers,” he added.
He lamented on the unfair advantage Microsoft has on individual deals “Whatever they’re offering, there should be terms across for everybody, not just for one or two they’ve chosen and pick, and that shows you that they have so much market power they can kind of go and do those things individually.” He continued.
He further urged regulators to look holistically at this.
However the European Commission declined to comment.
Zavery dismissed the suggestion that the issue is merely a petty quarrel between Google and Microsoft.
Writing by Juliet Onwurah; Editing by Julian Osamoto