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The e-commerce giant, which operates Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud business globally, has told the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in a letter that changes to Microsoft’s terms of services had made it difficult for customers to switch to alternative cloud providers.
“To use many of Microsoft’s software products with these other cloud services providers, a customer must purchase a separate licence even if they already own the software. This often makes it financially unviable for a customer to choose a provider other than Microsoft,” Amazon said.
In October, the CMA launched a probe into the country’s cloud computing industry, following a referral from media regulator Ofcom. The regulator highlighted Amazon and Microsoft’s dominance of the market, saying that, in 2022, AWS and Microsoft’s Azure had a combined 70-80% share in the country’s cloud infrastructure market. Google’s cloud division was at around 5-10%.
Google wants action against Microsoft
Last week, news agency Reuters reported that Google had also submitted a similar letter to the watchdog over Microsoft’s business practices.
“With Microsoft’s licensing restrictions in particular, UK customers are left with no economically reasonable alternative but to use Azure as their cloud services provider, even if they prefer the prices, quality, security, innovations, and features of rivals,” Google said in the letter, highlighting that it harms customers is a barrier to competition in Britain’s cloud computing market.
What Microsoft has to say
Microsoft said that Britain’s cloud computing market remained competitive.
“There are many sources of competition in the cloud market in the UK. Google, Oracle, IBM and many other cloud players are also investing billions of pounds in cloud infrastructure globally to satisfy demand and are competing strongly for each customer workload where they operate,” it told CMA in its own submission.
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