OVHcloud filed a joint complaint with several companies with the European Commission against Microsoft in the summer of 2021, according to information from the wall street journal. The French company accuses the American giant of abuse of a dominant position that could harm competition in the cloud market.
Microsoft’s packaged sales in the dock
OVH criticizes Microsoft for the way Richmond licenses its products such as Office, which makes it more expensive to use competing clouds. The company, listed on the Paris Stock Exchange since 2021, also suspects that Microsoft products work less well on other clouds.
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A company spokesperson told the wall street journal“ By abusing its dominant position, Microsoft harms fair competition and limits consumer choice in the market for cloud computing services “.
Microsoft, spared by the series of antitrust investigations targeting GAFA in the United States, is the subject of two other complaints on the European continent. It looks like the one filed by OVHcloud. The giant is taking advantage of its know-how in the field of professional software to support the growth of its services.
The first complaint, filed by Slack in 2020, accuses Microsoft of selling its own video conferencing system, Teams, along with Office. Nextcloud, a cloud storage company, for its part, considers that the bundling of OneDrive with the Windows operating system is an abuse of a dominant position. Once its complaint was revealed, Nextcloud set up its own coalition in Europe to denounce the practices of the company founded by Bill Gates.
A Microsoft spokesperson did not confirm to wall street journal whether the company has been made aware of OVH’s approach. He, however, said, Cloud providers have many options for delivering cloud services to their customers using Microsoft software, whether customer- or partner-purchased “.
US cloud giants crush European players
Although the European cloud market is growing, especially following the confinements linked to the health crisis, the American giants largely dominate the sector on the Old Continent. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, grab 69% market share according to Synergie data. European companies share the crumbs, Deutsche Telecom holds 2%, OVH 1%…
In France, the Autorité de la concurrence has launched an extensive investigation to assess the competitive situation in the cloud market. Like the study of OVH’s complaint before the European Commission, it will be necessary to be patient, the French investigation must last all year 2022.
Coincidence or not, the complaint from OVH and other unidentified companies was unveiled on March 16. This March 17, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, will meet with Margrethe Vestager, vice-president of the European Commission in charge of digital and competition. They will have things to say to each other, no doubt.