BRUSSELS Reuters- Alphabet's Google Cloud accused Microsoft of anti-competitive cloud computing practices and criticised imminent deals with European cloud vendors, saying these don't solve the concerns about its licensing terms.
Amit Zavery, Google Cloud Vice President, urged EU antitrust regulators to take a closer look at the issue.
Google Cloud's first public comments on Microsoft and its EU deals underscores the rivalry between the two U.S. tech giants in the multi billion dollar cloud computing business, where Google trails market leader Amazon and second-ranked Microsoft.
Microsoft has a very anti-competitive posture in the cloud. In an interview late on Wednesday, Zavery told Reuters that they are leveraging a lot of their dominance in the on-premise business as well as Office 365 and Windows to tie Azure and the rest of cloud services and make it hard for customers to have a choice.
When we talk to a lot of our customers, they find a lot of bundling practices, as well as the way they create pricing and licensing restrictions, making it hard for them to choose other providers, he said.
A person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters this week that Microsoft offered to change its cloud computing practices in a deal with smaller rivals, which in turn will suspend their antitrust complaints. The EU investigation will not be taken seriously as a result of the move.