📚 Microsoft 'Irreparably Damaging' EU's Cloud Ecosystem, Industry Group Claims

An anonymous reader shares an ArsTechnica report: This fall, Microsoft claimed to have addressed anticompetitive cloud infrastructure complaints from a few smaller cloud services providers in Europe. In a blog, the company announced it would be partnering with small to mid-sized cloud providers to give Microsoft customers more options for non-Microsoft cloud infrastructure. Notably, these Microsoft licensing changes excluded its biggest cloud competitors, Google and Amazon, from participating as partners. This, unsurprisingly, drew prompt criticism from a trade group with members that include both the smaller cloud providers as well as Amazon. The Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers in Europe (CISPE) group claimed that Microsoft's response failed to "show any progress in addressing Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior." Now, CISPE has filed its own complaint, urging the European Commission to open a formal investigation into how Microsoft is allegedly "irreparably damaging the European cloud ecosystem and depriving European customers of choice in their cloud deployments." According to CISPE, the group had no choice but to file the complaint because Microsoft allegedly has "not provided the detail, clarity or assurance that it truly intends to bring a swift end to its anti-competitive licensing practices." Rather than address complaints from smaller cloud providers like OVHcloud and Aruba -- which are also CISPE members -- CISPE suggests that Microsoft added new unfair practices this fall. These changes, CISPE Secretary General Francisco Mingorance told Ars, created "an existential issue for many of our members and without an investigation and action it could spell the end of a European cloud infrastructure sector."

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