Google has offered 470 million euros to a group of cloud industry players present in the European Union in order to avoid an official complaint against Microsoft with antitrust allegations. The complaint, previously filed by CISPE (which includes Amazon AWS, Aruba, and OVHcloud), the professional association of European cloud infrastructure providers, attacked the software maker’s cloud licensing practices, alleging that Microsoft made it difficult for customers to switch providers and it locks them too much into the Azure ecosystem, and this practice has a distorting effect on competition.
CISPE and Microsoft are finally in negotiations arrived common denominator in recent weeks, so the software giant escaped a potentially costly EU case. The Redmond giant has pledged to make further changes to its cloud licensing practices, and CISPE is withdrawing its complaint.
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However, rival Google did not take kindly to this: according to sources close to the case, the search giant made a counteroffer to the group days before the agreement in exchange for maintaining the EU complaint, which could have resulted in an EC investigation. Google came up with several offers, one package worth nearly 455 million euros included, among other things, software licenses for five years, in addition to cash and long-term partnership offers, it tried to convince the parties to continue the EU antitrust complaint against Microsoft.
CISPE eventually went in the opposite direction, striking similar agreements with Microsoft that allowed European service providers to use enhanced Azure features and to offer Microsoft products and services on their local cloud infrastructures. Microsoft also reached a cash settlement with CISPE worth about $11 million, according to people familiar with the deal. Microsoft has also undertaken to work with CISPE members to further develop the Azure HCI Stack, adapted to the needs of European cloud providers, which offers, for example, a multi-session virtual desktop infrastructure based on Windows 11, free extended security updates and the possibility of paid licensing of SQL Server then.
According to the platform manager of Google Cloud, Microsoft should not pay the complainants, but should make substantive changes – this is an interesting statement after Google also tried to convince those involved in a similar way. By the way, the spokesperson of AWS stated in relation to the agreements: the agreement may be beneficial for some CISPE members, but because of this, many Microsoft customers still cannot use their preferred cloud either in Europe or elsewhere.
In 2022, the association asked the European Commission to launch a formal investigation because, in its opinion, Microsoft is “irreparably damaging the European cloud ecosystem and depriving European consumers of real choices.”
Source: www.hwsw.hu
