Microsoft has promised to change its licensing practices and overall principles to “level the playing field” for local cloud providers in a bid to see off European anti-trust watchdogs.
Brad Smith, Microsoft president, outlined the changes after the Financial Times pointed to the potential for new antitrust action against the company in Europe. Critics said the company was tying Windows and Office to Azure to fuel its cloud growth.
The changes include the ability for European cloud providers to offer Windows and Office on a hosted basis as part of their own solutions, independent of Microsoft’s cloud platform.
Smith wrote: “Some of the most compelling feedback for me personally came from a CEO who said that he felt that he ‘was a victim of friendly fire in Microsoft’s competition with Amazon.’ It was hard to hear this – but he was right. Over the past few years, our focus on competing with the largest technology providers has resulted in us not being as attentive to the impact on our cloud provider partners. We are making changes to remedy this, beginning today.”
Whether the changes are enough to allow Microsoft to avoid new antitrust action in Europe remains to be seen. Smith acknowledged that the new policies and principles are “very broad but not necessarily exhaustive” and said the company will announce “further steps in the months ahead”.
