Google files EU complaint over Microsoft cloud services [Video]

Google said Wednesday that it had filed a complaint against Microsoft at the European Commission, accusing its rival of “anticompetitive” licensing practices to force customers to use its cloud service.

Google said Microsoft had exploited business customers’ reliance on “must have” software products such as Windows Server to compel them to use its Azure cloud platform.

Microsoft has made it cost-prohibitive for clients to use Windows Server or other products on rival services, such as Google Cloud or Amazon’s AWS, by marking up the price by 400 percent, Google charged.

“Microsoft’s licensing terms restrict European customers from moving their current Microsoft workloads to competitors’ clouds –- despite there being no technical barriers to doing so,” Google Cloud vice president Amit Zavery said in a blog post co-signed by Google Cloud’s Europe region president Tara Brady.

For businesses that use rival cloud platforms despite the cost, “Microsoft introduced additional obstacles over …