PARIS, March 20 — Three companies have lodged a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, accusing the US technology giant of anti-competitive practices in its cloud services, sources told AFP yesterday, confirming media reports.
The companies complain that under certain clauses in Microsoft’s licensing contracts for Office 365 services, tariffs are higher when the software is not run on Azure cloud infrastructure, which is owned by the US group. In a statement to AFP, Microsoft said “European cloud service providers have built successful business models on Microsoft software and services” and had many options on how to use that software.
Microsoft is also the subject of an earlier 2021 complaint to the European Commission by a different set of companies led by the German Nextcloud.