Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian speaks on the Google Cloud Next occasion in San Francisco on April 9, 2019.
Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Google, which has spent years defending itself in opposition to claims of monopolistic conduct throughout the U.S. and Europe, goes public with its personal criticism of anti-competitive practices by longtime rival Microsoft.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, Google alleged that Microsoft makes use of unfair licensing phrases to “lock in clients” to exert management over the cloud-computing market.
The letter was despatched in response to a broad FTC request for touch upon probably anti-competitive acts within the cloud trade. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to remark additional.
Google singled out Microsoft within the criticism, arguing that by means of its dominant Windows Server and Microsoft Offices merchandise, the corporate could make it troublesome for its large roster of shoppers to make use of something however its Azure cloud infrastructure providing. Google described Microsoft’s licensing restrictions as a “complex web” that forestalls companies from diversifying their enterprise software program distributors.
Google additionally mentioned that such management represents a big nationwide safety and cybersecurity danger. It highlighted successive cyberattacks involving Microsoft merchandise, together with the SolarWinds breach. Microsoft and Google each have lively cybersecurity practices that reply to and analysis cyber threats.
Google is not any stranger to antitrust issues. In January, the Justice Department filed its second antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Google in simply over two years, focusing on its promoting enterprise.
The division’s earlier lawsuit, filed in October 2020 underneath the Trump administration, accused Google of utilizing monopoly energy to chop off competitors for web search by means of exclusionary agreements. That case is anticipated to go to trial in September.
Google additionally faces three different antitrust lawsuits from massive teams of state attorneys basic, together with one centered on its promoting enterprise led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In its FTC letter, Microsoft additionally alleged that Oracle’s practices are dangerous to clients.
“With overly complex agreements that seek to lock in clients to their ecosystems,” Google mentioned, firms like Microsoft and Oracle “are not only forcing customers toward a monolithic cloud model but also limiting choice, increasing costs for customers, and disrupting growing and thriving digital ecosystems in the U.S. and around the world.”
In the Nineteen Nineties, Microsoft was concerned in probably the most infamous antitrust circumstances in U.S. historical past. The firm was accused of utilizing its dominance in desktop software program to push shoppers to its web browser, killing off competitors from upstarts like Netscape. The authorities gained the case, in the end forcing Microsoft to permit PC makers to make use of different firm’s browsers.
WATCH: Microsoft might hit $500 in 5 to seven years
Source: www.cnbc.com”