The British antimonopoly regulator said that the dominant position of Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud technology market interferes with the development of competition. According to the analytical group in the Office for competition and markets (CMA), the difficult technical conditions and commercial restrictions make it difficult to transition users to other cloud providers.
CMA considers the possibility of assigning Microsoft and Amazon a special status of companies with strategic market influence in the field of cloud services. Such a status would give the regulator additional powers for interference. However, it is noted that Digital Markets Unit plans to start such investigations no earlier than next year.
Special attention in the report is given to Microsoft. Its licensing software, including Windows Server and Microsoft 365, limits competition, especially when the company’s products are used on the platforms of other providers. This, according to the group, harms both Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.
At the moment, Microsoft and Amazon occupy 30-40% of the cloud services market in the UK. Google closes the top three with a share of 5-10%.
Google called CMA conclusions an important signal, emphasizing that the licensing restrictions interfere with customers and undermine competition. In turn, Amazon and Microsoft said that the report does not reflect the real dynamics of the market and ignores the growth of investment and technology.
