On Wednesday, Google revealed that it had lodged a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, alleging that its competitor engages in “anti-competitive” licensing strategies that pressure customers to use its cloud services.
Amit Zavery, Vice President of Google Cloud, stated at a press conference, “We believe this regulatory is essential to eliminate Microsoft’s vendor lock-in and to provide customers with options, establishing a fair competitive environment.”
Google claims that Microsoft has taken advantage of businesses' dependency on essential software like Windows Server to push them toward its Azure cloud platform. According to Google, Microsoft has made it prohibitively expensive for customers to utilize Windows Server or other products on competing services, such as Google Cloud or Amazon’s AWS, by inflating prices by 400 percent.
In a blog co-authored with Tara Brady, President of Google Cloud's European region, Zavery mentioned, “Microsoft's licensing conditions hinder European customers from transferring their existing Microsoft workloads to other cloud providers—even though no technical limitations are preventing such moves.”
For companies opting for competing cloud services despite the high costs, Google noted that “Microsoft has implemented additional hurdles in recent years, including restricting security updates and creating other compatibility issues.”