Syed Imran Haider 
On Tuesday, a Spanish startup group submitted a complaint to the Spanish antitrust regulator about Microsoft’s cloud practices.
This came after a trade group had already submitted an EU complaint regarding Microsoft’s fast-growing cloud computing services.
Currently, Microsoft is at the second spot in the cloud computing sector, with Amazon taking first place in global rankings.
However, business users are expected to close the gap quickly, as they are being drawn towards a bunch of generative AI features that are powered by OpenAI’s technology.
The complaint
Representing more than 700 startups in the country, the Spanish Startup Association highlighted a number of allegedly anti-competitive practices of Microsoft seen in recent years.
The complaint said that Microsoft had forced the use of Azure cloud through its dominant position in the markets of traditional productivity software (Microsoft Office, SQL Server) and Operating Systems (Windows).
It also said that the company has also imposed artificial barriers aimed at restricting the ability of startups to compete in a fair and competitive manner.
According to the document, Microsoft’s has imposed on data portability and its practices do not allow competition in software licenses because of the contractual terms that have been outlined.
The complaint said that this prevents startups from choosing providers of these services on their own. which means their capacity for flexibility and choice is reduced.
This ends up reducing their ability of grow, innovative and be resilient.
Microsoft’s defense
The tech giant obviously defended its cloud practices. A spokesperson said that they provide flexibility and choice to their clients to switch cloud providers free of cost.
They also said that their licensing terms enable both cloud providers and customers to operate. They offer the company’s software on every cloud.
The spokesperson also added that Microsoft intended to engage with the Spanish Startup Association to understand their concerns.
The association had called on the competition. Watchdog in Spain to conduct an investigation and to take measures urgently for ensuring a competitive market.
Additional details
The president of the Spanish Startup Association, Carlos Mateo, said that all companies need to be able to compete in an equal environment.
This is to ensure that no one is left behind, whether as providers of the technology, or as customers. A complaint had also been made in November last year to EU antitrust regulators.
The complaint was submitted by Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), of which Amazon is also a member.
It was about the new contract terms that Microsoft had imposed from October 1st . Along with some other practices, claiming that they were harming the cloud computing ecosystem in Europe.
As part of its investigation, the European Commission is looking into the request for customer data by Microsoft. They has asked cloud rivals to provide this information.
The sector is also under the investigation of the UK Competition and Markets Authority for the same issues.
