Google has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft for anti-competitive cloud business. The Internet company argues that the world’s largest software maker, Microsoft, is using its dominant market position in software such as Windows Server to tie customers to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
Microsoft recently reported strong growth in its cloud offerings, while Google’s cloud division fell short of analysts’ expectations. It’s the first complaint to the European Commission for Alphabet’s Google Group.
According to Google’s complaint, Microsoft’s anti-competitive behavior occurred through restrictive licensing terms and discriminatory pricing. They made it more expensive and complicated for customers to use Windows Server in non-Microsoft cloud environments, such as Google Cloud or Amazon’s AWS. Rather than allowing fair competition, Microsoft used its market power in Windows Server to penalize customers who chose competing cloud providers, the complaint said.
