back to article Google exec: Microsoft Teams concession 'too little, too late'

Google is urging regulators on both sides of the pond to tackle Microsoft's alleged software licensing abuses in the cloud before it is too late, claiming it may already be too late in the collaboration services market, which is also attracting interest from antitrust authorities. Back in 2019, Microsoft introduced some …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hmmmm

    A lot of Microsoft customers woes have been bought on themselves by choosing Microsoft. There were - and still are - other choices.

    I can't help but feel sometimes it's like a Tesla owner complaining they can't fill their car at a gas station ... well you did buy a fucking Tesla. Which everyone knows as you won't shut up about it.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Meh

      Re: Hmmmm

      Except, notably, it's not really Microsoft's customers complaining but Microsoft's competition . . . who are also known for abusing their monopoly power in their own domains. It's a bit rich for Google and Amazon to complain about Microsoft using its market dominance to lock in customers when both other companies are demonstrably guilty of the same thing. All of them want the same lock-in, and all of them are happy to shaft their customers when it suits them. God help us all if any of them achieves full dominance over the others.

      1. Marcelo Rodrigues
        Devil

        Re: Hmmmm

        "Except, notably, it's not really Microsoft's customers complaining but Microsoft's competition . . . who are also known for abusing their monopoly power in their own domains. "

        Yes, Tou are absolutely right. But what I would like to see is this thing going ahead, and Microsoft getting condemned.

        And then, to get back at competition, I would like to see Microsoft egging the regulators against its competitors.

        And let them burn one another to the ground on the courts.

      2. Robert Grant

        Re: Hmmmm

        This is whataboutism. In this area - corporate IT - Microsoft has a position and stance that is very close to anticompetitive. The only thing holding it back is how bad Teams is.

    2. Snake Silver badge

      Re: Hmmmm

      Yes, this is exactly my point (and was subject to downvoting). To call Teams 'monopolistic' is somehow conveniently forgetting Zoom, for one. Don't want to commit to MS's licensing bundle for Teams? There are several other choices, some if them with a longer market history.

      1. 43300 Silver badge

        Re: Hmmmm

        Zoom largely just does videconferencing - Teams also acts as a portal to Sharepoint which is a significant pull for corporates.

  2. Happy_Jack

    Windows Server?

    "but in some other areas, such as Windows Server, customers simply aren't allowed to run the software on so-called "listed" providers - which Redmond classifies as AWS, Google and Alibaba".

    I think anybody choosing Windows Server or SQL Server in 2023 deserves all they get.

    1. Throatwarbler Mangrove Silver badge
      Windows

      Re: Windows Server?

      "I think anybody choosing Windows Server or SQL Server in 2023 deserves all they get."

      Flexible, powerful, stable software which comes without the side order of unbearable smugness and elitism that accompanies Linux and Open Source?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows Server?

        The words "stable" and "Microsoft" only belong in the same sentence if they're kept apart by the words "not".

        The amount of resources I have to use to get a stable service on a Windows platform totally dwarfs what I can get away with for the same performance and stability on Linux.

        In my opinion, resilience and redundancy are not there to cover the deficiencies of the software you run.

        1. aerogems Silver badge

          Re: Windows Server?

          Windows can be quite stable. At least ever since apps started becoming 32-bit so they could take advantage of the protected memory functions of x86 and the GPF errors became a thing of the past. Just like Linux can be quite unstable. A lot of it is down to the skill of the admin and the quality of the hardware. A good Windows admin will pretty much always achieve better results than a shitty Linux admin. There's absolutely nothing inherent about Linux, or any other Unix(-like) OS that makes it automatically better than any other OS from a separate evolutionary tree.

          1. tracker1

            Re: Windows Server?

            You seen to be comforting NT and 32-bit Windows software.

        2. tracker1

          Re: Windows Server?

          Just be glad you never went down the rabbit hole that is Windows Containers...

          Oh, the windows server update literally broke every application that you have deployed?

        3. jmch Silver badge

          Re: Windows Server?

          I can't talk so much about Windows in a corporate environment but SQL server delivers the goods

      2. Martin M

        Re: Windows Server?

        I'm not sure how Linux can be elitist when it's the majority of the server market and the vast majority of the *new* server market. My commiserations for being on the wrong side of history; it's like listening to a Solaris advocate circa 2008 or mainframe advocate in 1995. But if there's not too much of your career left, stop tilting at windmills, sit back, relax and enjoy. Surfing the trailing edge can be lucrative - your skills are increasingly at a premium.

        1. sabroni Silver badge
          Boffin

          Re: Surfing the trailing edge can be lucrative

          Unbearable smugness was the other criticism, I notice you've not managed to get rid of that.

      3. tracker1

        Re: Windows Server?

        SQL Server runs under Linux and even in Docker. Not to mention PostgreSQL does more than MS SQL Server in many ways and has a better dev experience overall, while supported by every major and second tier cloud provider.

        There is literally no compelling reason to choose MS SQL Server for a new project.

        As to Windows Server, sure if you want more complex deployment and live to pay more money to run your software. Even for the C# apps I've written in the past decade, they're all containerized and deployed in Linux.

        1. jmch Silver badge

          Re: Windows Server?

          "PostgreSQL does more than MS SQL Server in many ways and has a better dev experience overall"

          Native DB functions, maybe, but for me the compelling selling point for MSSQL Server was the BI suite that comes with it. SSIS is far from perfect, but a big step up from coding an Enterprise Data Warehouse ETL with just native SQL. SSAS is equally far from perfect, but the end users love being able to do on-the-fly analysis without having to wait for everything to recalculate. And the suits love that the BI suite comes essentially for free with the SQL Server license (on-premises at least)

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Windows Server?

          Build something from scratch all around the "new paradigm" of microservices and dozens/hundreds of very small databases on excessive ressources, postgresql and even mysql are absolutely fine. At the other end of the spectrum live the 100 TB databases with hundreds of thousands of tables handling tens of thousands of requests per second, and that's where sql server (or ugh... oracle) flex their muscle.

    2. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Windows Server?

      > I think anybody choosing Windows Server or SQL Server in 2023 deserves all they get.

      Would you prefer to jump from the Microsoft frying pan into the Oracle fire?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Windows Server?

        Are these all the databases you can name?

  3. nematoad Silver badge
    Unhappy

    Pot meet kettle.

    "Microsoft has so much market power that they can decide… how the market will evolve based on their rules,"

    Well they would know, wouldn't they?

    How anyone can come out with this bullshit with a straight face beats me.

    Maybe that's why members of the C suite are so richly rewarded.

    Soon it will be Microsoft's turn to moan about the stranglehold Google has on the online ad business and search and how that is unfair to a struggling browser owner like themselves.

    Hypocritical, entitled and just downright loathsome the lot of 'em.

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Pot meet kettle.

      Let them fight.

    2. CatWithChainsaw

      Re: Pot meet kettle.

      It is, but consumers only win if corporations are in competition with each other more than they are in competition to bleed consumers dry.

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Stop

    Sorry

    I'm terribly sorry, but I just can't bring myself to sympathise with anything a Google mouthpiece complains about.

    You are hoovering up every bit of data you can (with and without permission), storing it forever in bit barns the size of Texas, and using and abusing that data to sling stupid ads for which you get paid all the money.

    You have no right to complain about anything.

    1. Pascal

      Re: Sorry

      Not just "with and without permission", also "legally and illegally".

      After all why would you follow the law of the land when the only consequences are fines that are less than 1% of what breaking the lawn earns?

  5. Claptrap314 Silver badge

    The fact that the complainers are doing the same or worse aside...

    what century is this?

    I really don't have a lot of sympathy for a large company going to m$ for anything. You have to ignore 40 years of continuous behavior of this sort.

  6. Lonpfrb

    Cloud Foundry

    Clearly it is possible to run workloads across Azure, AWS and GCP so supported platforms should not be restricted.

    This looks like a straight anti competition measure so should not be allowed globally..

  7. aerogems Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Just... no

    Google talking about some other company doing monopolistic things is just... no.

    1. jonathan keith
      Boffin

      Re: Just... no

      Yes, but this is in an area of business that Google doesn't monopolise, so they're entitled to complain about another's monopolistic behaviour. You see?

  8. tracker1

    Really!?!

    This from a company that has literally killed more projects actively used and profitable than I can count at this point.

    Including GCP deployments and most recently domains.

    And it's not like Hangouts isn't included with Google Apps.

    1. Pascal

      Re: Really!?!

      Killing Domains was a shitty move for sure, especially "we sell your business, without your say so, including all your billing data, to a shitty bargain bin dns outfit that doesn't handle even half of the TLDs google domains supported".

  9. longrangethinker

    Big Red

    It amazes me that nobody ever brings Oracle into these antitrust and exclusionary conversations. Get ready to pay through the nose if you license any of their products on a Cloud provider or virtualization stack that's not Oracle.

  10. Innique

    What gets me is MS still forces Teams on you. Every new install I have to go out of my way to remove it from a Windows 11 install. How is it that Dell and other manufacturers allow this as they are leveraging their dominance on the Operation software to push the other products it's the same thing they got in trouble with regarding IE yet it is still going on. EU is on it and just a matter of time before the US get's it stuff together.

    1. 43300 Silver badge

      That thing called 'Teams' on Windows 11 isn't actually Teams as most people understand it - it's a consumer chat program which is used by nobody I've ever come across., And it's a pain in the arse to get rid of it for all users and stop it coming back.

  11. Ashto5

    Using. Windows and Linux

    Never had a problem with either.

    Teams is convenient and does the job.

    SQL SERVER just works and works at pace other DB maybe available but I have not had a need to use them.

    Google Amazon and other complaining about price gouging makes me smile.

    I should have trained as a lawyer as this is one mega gravy train and it will never stop.

  12. TVU

    "Google exec: Microsoft Teams concession 'too little, too late'"

    Hmmm. How about Pot...Kettle...Black?

  13. Innique

    Don't get me wrong, no one is getting fired for buying Microsoft, just like 20 years ago no one got fired for buying IBM, but I did use the oligopoly positioning to close Teams and other non enterprise infrastructure stuff by leveraging the Enterprise Agreement negotiation and any MS employee is lying if they say they don't use the enterprise positioning to close Teams, Dynamics, PowerBI deals.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Our business is a Microsoft outfit. ~90% of our servers are Windows 2019-2022, all our workstations are Windows 10, we used to run on-prem Exchange and even Skype for Business then Lync.

      One day I got poked by a Microsoft drone with a notification about them sending auditors our way, to evaluate our license uses and all. A hell of a clusterfuck of a bad time ahead.

      Luckily at that stage we had just started a big migration project move off-prem to Microsoft 365 stuff including Teams, and I was able to placate them with a kind of "We're already moving to Teams/Office 365, bad time for an audit, if you force this the only result will be us going to Google Docs instead", and that placated them. (In the end, that's what they wanted after all. everybody on fully controled subscriptions).

      We're perfectly fine in the Microsoft ecosystem, but I 100% agree that they will leverage the hell out of their position, just as the other big ones will.

      Silver lining I suppose is we're not dealing with oracle licensing.

  14. CLD

    Seriously?

    This journey to Teams has been a long one for Microsoft. The instant messaging was there in Exchange, then moved Live Communications Server adding voice and video. We then had Office Communication Server, Lync, Skype for Business.... for years these were bundled into the MS Office licensing and nobody really cared. Microsoft kept innovating and adapting...

    It's been 20 years to get Teams where it is. It had to compete against traditional telephony brands running both analog and digital voice (Ericcson, LG), then VOIP (Mitel, Avaya, Cisco), Conferencing services from Polycom, Cisco and others... and it competes against online conferencing services such as Zoom and Google Meet. I'm sure many of you will be able to add a heap of other brands I have missed.

    For many years it was a product that arguably not many people cared about. The market was probably small and I would dare say innovation was limited.

    I would suggest COVID changed that with more people working from home. Suddenly this bundled extra was important. Now the market is worth more and other players want a greater share. I would suggest they are also trying to distract from their own monopolistic practices.

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