AWS exec criticises Microsoft's 'anti-competitive' licencing practices
Pots and kettles
A senior executive at Amazon Web Services (AWS) has accused Microsoft of engaging in unfair licencing practices, stating that while the company has made cosmetic changes to its licences in order to appease regulators, it is continuing to ensure that its products are more expensive when run on the cloud platforms of its competitors.
"Customers and policymakers around the world increasingly see MSFT's recent licensing rhetoric as a troubling admission of the same anti-competitive tactics that many companies have been raising with them for years, but went unheeded until they were put before the European Commission," Matt Garman, senior vice president of sales and marketing at AWS wrote in a LinkedIn post.
Earlier this year, several European cloud providers, including OVHcloud and Nextcloud, filed an antitrust case in Europe against Microsoft, alleging that the tech giant was stifling competition in the cloud market and making it harder for its consumers to choose cloud services from rival firms.
According to the lawsuit, switching from Azure to another cloud service provided by competing companies costs more money for consumers. Additionally, it said that using Microsoft's software on other platforms led to reduced performance, making it difficult for other cloud providers to compete with Microsoft.
Microsoft responded by promising to make it easier for customers to migrate their Microsoft cloud products to third-party clouds. The company also promised to allow European cloud providers greater space to compete with Microsoft 365 in general.
In Garman's opinion, all these are only "cosmetic" changes.
Microsoft's new requirements, according to Garman, only apply to a select group of suppliers that the company does not consider to be a threat.
"MSFT's answer is not to do what's right for customers and fix their policy so all customers can run MSFT's software on the cloud provider they choose; but rather, under the pretext of supporting European technology needs, MSFT proposes to select cloud providers about whom it is less competitively concerned and allow MSFT software to run only on those providers," Garman wrote.
He continued: "This is not fairness in licensing and is not what customers want. We continue to hear from customers around the world that MSFT's discriminatory licensing practices are costing them millions of dollars and the freedom to work with whom they wish."
Additionally, Garman posted a link to an opinion piece by Steve Weber from the University of California, Berkeley, that appeared in The Hill earlier this month.
In the paper, Weber demanded additional regulation regarding the bundling of cloud platforms and applications.
"The unfortunate fact is that bundling of applications with platforms can be an attractive way for big technology players to protect themselves from competition and raise the costs of switching to the point where it becomes prohibitive for customers to really even consider it," Weber wrote.
Microsoft's senior commercial executive for gaming and independent software suppliers, Justin Stenger, responded to Garman's criticism in a comment on his LinkedIn post.
"How many cloud providers does AWS allow to run AWS software?" Stenger asked.
"What Amazon IP does Amazon allow customers to run in the Microsoft Cloud?"
This week, at the company's annual Inspire partner conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that clients who use the Microsoft 365 suite of products can save "more than 60% compared to a patchwork of competitive solutions."
He added that the Power Platform package, which includes tools for business process automation and productivity, saves clients "80% or more" compared to major competitors.