Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian speaks at the Google Cloud Subsequent event in San Francisco, April 9, 2019.
Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Photos
Google, which has spent years defending itself in opposition to claims of monopolistic habits across the U.S. and Europe, goes public with its fill grievance of anti-competitive practices by longtime rival Microsoft.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Price on Wednesday, Google alleged Microsoft uses unfair licensing terms to “lock in purchasers” to exert protect watch over over the cloud-computing market.
The letter was sent based totally on a grand FTC request for commentary on potential anti-competitive acts within the cloud industry. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to commentary further.
Google singled out Microsoft within the grievance, arguing that via its dominant Windows Server and Microsoft Offices products, the firm can make it now not easy for its wide roster of purchasers to make boom of something else however its Azure cloud infrastructure offering. Google described Microsoft’s licensing restrictions as a “complex net” that prevents agencies from diversifying their enterprise application distributors.
Google moreover said such protect watch over represents a indispensable nationwide security and cybersecurity threat. It highlighted successive cyberattacks inviting Microsoft products, including the SolarWinds breach. Microsoft and Google every own active cybersecurity practices that respond to and compare cyber threats.
Google is rarely any stranger to antitrust concerns. In January, the U.S. Division of Justice filed its second antitrust lawsuit in opposition to Google in magnificent over two years, focused on its advertising and marketing change.
The division’s earlier lawsuit, filed in October 2020 under the Trump administration, accused Google of using monopoly vitality to reduce off competitors for net search via exclusionary agreements. That case is expected to traipse to trial in September.
Google moreover faces three other antitrust courtroom cases from spacious groups of swear attorneys same old, including one focused on its advertising and marketing change led by Texas Attorney Long-established Ken Paxton.
In its FTC letter, Google moreover alleged Oracle’s practices are despicable to customers.
“With overly complex agreements that seek to lock in purchasers to their ecosystems,” Google said, companies much like Microsoft and Oracle “aren’t handiest forcing customers in direction of a monolithic cloud model however moreover limiting preference, rising prices for patrons, and disrupting rising and thriving digital ecosystems within the U.S. and across the sphere.”
Within the Nineties, Microsoft was thinking the truth is seemingly the most infamous antitrust cases in U.S. historic past. The firm was accused of using its dominance in desktop application to push patrons to its net browser, killing off competitors from upstarts much like Netscape. The federal government received the case, within the extinguish forcing Microsoft to enable PC makers to make boom of alternative companies’ browsers.
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