From The Hill
License to compete: Regulators must step in to even the cloud playing field
By Steve Weber
After more than a decade of delay, regulators in three of Microsoft’s major cloud markets — the U.S., the United Kingdom and the European Union — may finally be taking steps to hold the tech giant accountable for its anticompetitive behavior.
It is imperative that each of them act decisively, and soon. Given Microsoft’s long history of anticompetitive behavior, regulatory intervention is the only way to prevent the company from continuing to abuse its market power to lock in customers across the globe.
Without intervention, Microsoft is certain to continue running the playbook it has used since its Azure cloud platform was launched 14 years ago. This involves leveraging unfair and unjustified licensing practices to force Microsoft application customers onto Azure and, when regulatory scrutiny heats up in a given market, making the narrowest possible one-off deals with small regional competitors to evade regulatory action. These deals are the very definition of “too little, too late.” They don’t support true competition, and they instead enable Microsoft to forestall broader antitrust scrutiny while continuing to amass cloud market share...
Steven Weber is a professor emeritus of the I School, retiring in 2021. He previously served as the faculty director at the Center for Long Term Cybersecurity (CLTC).
