The antitrust division of the European Union is currently investigating the management of Microsoft’s cloud platform, microsoft azureto know if you are taking advantage of your Privileged position in the market to eliminate their rivals through illicit techniques.
EU regulators have questioned customers and major competitors for this. The conclusions, according to Bloomberg, are compelling and show that he could be using his power to access confidential business information of companies in the cloud with which it does business. If these suspicions are confirmed, it would mean a serious problem for the US software company, which would face a notable penalty.
There are several cloud companies that have protested about Microsoft’s behavior, including CISPEan industry group with links to Amazon Web Services (from Amazon.com).
The origins of the agreement
On October 1, Microsoft announced the entry into force of a series of modified license agreements that would facilitate free competition between cloud service providers. A decade ago, the company was fined €1.6 billion by the Commission by committing different infringements, which in turn led to complaints from different providers.
Since October, the implementation of updates to its outsourcing and hosting conditions benefits customers around the world, being able to use their licenses at any European cloud provider in their data centers. So that, will be able to purchase licenses only for the virtual environment without the need to purchase physical hardware. However, this means that rivals such as Alibaba, Google and Amazon are excluded from the agreements.
Microsoft obtains its long-awaited merger
This escalation of complaints and investigations by the EU occur in response to the approval by the European Commission of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft for an amount of $68.7 billion. Thus, he manages to get hold of the publisher of the successful game ‘Call of Duty’ and gain a preferential position in the video game industry.
The approval comes weeks after the competent authority of the United Kingdom tried to veto it, and that currently the United States Federal Trade Commission is trying to prevent such an operation. However, those with formal complaints still have a few hours to submit non-confidential versions before the competent authorities. This formal investigation could lead to fines, although it is true that regulators have the power to resolve them without having to reach that stage.
To date, the Commission has received complaints from the French OVH Cloudthe Italian Arubaa Danish cloud company and the German cloud provider, Nextcloud. Microsoft has not yet positioned itself regarding the complaints raised, but it is adamant both for the agreement with Activision Blizzard as per the position of azure.
This is the outcome of a story that began in November 2022, the date on which Microsoft announced its purchase and in which the EU began with a rigorous antitrust inspection. Negative repercussions for both the video game market and subscription services were analysed, as well as the preferential position of windows in the operating system market.
The conclusion reached by the European Commission is that the agreement can be carried out thanks to the fact that Microsoft has offered a free ten year software license affected competitors to freely stream Activision Blizzard games to their customers. Therefore, it is considered a practical and effective license and that it does not harm the antitrust barriers of the EU.
So, it does make sense that Activision Blizzard games are exclusively on the cloud gaming service platform, Game Pass Ultimate, although the position of Windows in the market of operating systems for PCs is strengthened. With the free license granted, any player in the European Economic Area (EEA) You will be able to stream signature games for PC and console.
Similarly, the EU control body ensures that this purchase significantly improves the conditions for the broadcasting of games in the cloud when compared to the current situation, something that therefore also indirectly benefits the competition.
Currently, no Activision Blizzard games are available on video game streaming services. were in GeForce Now from NVIDIA and now they will be again in other cloud services such as Boosteroid.
