Google wants regulators to take Microsoft down a notch before it stifles AI Google has again stoked fears that rival Microsoft is using anticompetitive business practices and licenses to establish a cloud monopoly, and is calling on regulators to take action. In an interview with Reuters, Google Cloud VP Amit Zavery alleged that Microsoft is using many of the same tricks that helped it gain a dominant …
The 2.5 major cloud providers need to play on a level playing field. It’s the consumers getting screwed to keep the tech companies share price high. That said, Microsoft takes it to a whole new level of screwing customers, and while it’s a complete pain in the arse to get off windows, long term why wouldn’t you have that strategy. Windows is basically a 40% tax on every VM you run, and as far as I can see Linux is a better OS anyway.
It is NOT better. Myself being mostly a Linux user, but also Windows sometimes.
Windows is much more stable, consistent and intuitive. Unless you are a pure command-line geek.
It Microsoft did not change UI since Windows 7, cared more about security and privacy, the OS would be just lovely. Also MS Office has got slower with some UI aspects getting worse. Meanwhile Linux supports old hardware and is free.
And any Linux update does not require that you throw away your current computers and buy a new one.
Certainly it's complex to move from Linux to Windows 11 but it's a total pain in the butt to move into Windows 11 these days after spending all the money to buy the new computer.
because you [threw] away some of your peripherals instead, in order to locate / buy / source Linux-supported ones.
Don't go calling that kettle black, Mr. Pots. Windows 11 has stiff hardware requirements, yes, but (hopefully) to support future abilities that Linux does not, or will never, have. A pain? Yes. But we've ALL been here before, gamers even more so, when hardware is deemed inadequate and we need to update. It's not hyperbole, that's tech for you.
the Windows giant comes down to licensing practices that either prevent or make it more expensive to deploy Microsoft's software platforms on third-party clouds – thereby creating an incentive to deploy on Azure.
Or an incentive to avoid those Microsoft software platforms.
Build cloud infrastructure so it is portable.
The arguments are weak indeed. Google is losing big time in this race and they are mad. I suspect MS wants to have an alternative model selection in their products to show they allow customers to choose, which is a good thing. Google’s problem is that they do not care about their enterprise customers so those shun them, MS on the other hand promises gold and wine and more.
Yes MS is leading their customers to the Azure quicksand but the same applies to all public clouds. Azure is not great IMO, there are better alternatives like Huggingface to choose and run the models.
Offering features in your cloud that makes it hard to migrate to another cloud is something that all cloud platforms do. But here Microsoft has the particularity that it is using the fact they have a quasi-monopoly in one domain (Windows in enterprise software) to reinforce their position in another domain (cloud), by charging more for Windows licenses if it doesn't run on their cloud. It's the local electricity company saying "we are also an ISP, and if you get another ISP we'll charge you more for electricity".
and worse at sucking your information and bank accounts dry?
IMHO, the top 3 all tie for evilness.
MS
or
or
Amazon
and in 4th place
Oracle for its arcane licensing that even the sales teams don't understand.
Sometimes their antics make IBM seem a saner place. (Note that I said 'seem')
The only solution I can see is to break Microsoft up. Four companies - one gets Azure and no software products. One gets Office, nothing else, and they're not allowed to do any cloud services. One gets Windows, nothing else, no cloud. Last company gets everything else, no cloud services, no Windows, no Office.
None of the four are allowed to share staff. They're not allowed to buy software directly from each other but most go through the channel. The other 3 are strictly forbidden from using the first's cloud services for any purpose.
Draconian? Yes. Will it make anyone feel any better about things? Doubtful. Will it solve anything? Probably not. Will any politician dare to do it? Of course not, Micros~1 will donate far too much to make sure it never happens.
Unfortunately there is sufficient overlap as regards Office that the split you suggest won't quite work. Office is now not just local software; it's tied into the cloudy services very heavily, including cloudy versions of the client apps. I think the only thing that would make sense here is to split Office and its cloudy services (Saas - Sharepoint, etc) off together. Fully agree that they should be separated from Azure (IaaS / PaaS) and the OS, though.
I'm not sure even that split would be possible now. Microsoft have tied them so closely together, many of the M365 services are underpinned by Azure services at the back end, you just don't see them.
Splitting them up would be extremely difficult for Microsoft and a disaster for most companies that depend on M365 and Azure IaaS/PaaS.
Previously when they talked about splitting Microsoft up (pre-cloud) it was relatively simple to see where the split could be made, but most customers would find it very difficult to cope with the amount of change required by a split of the MS Cloud services and it is difficult to see how it would make their lives better.
Having to deal with multiple vendors would be more complex and costly.
Having to re-integrate the separate services within the business would be more complex and costly.
Trying to secure separate cloud services with different security products would be more complex and costly.
Large companies would undoubtably hire all the available people with the right skills to get the job done, but SME's who depend on MS Cloud would struggle to deal with it.
Contemplating a split of MS Cloud services is about far more than just what it means to Microsoft, the impact on customers that would have to deal with the fall out of such a split is huge, not just in the US but globally.
And before anybody says customers can move somewhere else I will refer you to my previous points about the cost and complexity of dealing with (or migrating to) different venders/services.
Everyone seems to forget that these are private companies that were setup for the sole purpose of selling a product to make money. They are not public utilities created for the benefit of the masses.
Like any private company their single purpose it to make money for the people that own them. Providing a useful service and selling a popular product is all a function aimed at making more money.
Googles "Do no Evil" mantra is bullshit and always has been. Bill Gates first publication in a magazine was about how he wanted to get paid for his efforts creating software. And Jeff Bezos is probably the worst of the lot, Amazon warehouses are modern slavery.
These are not nice fluffy companies who exist to make our lives better, they exist to make money plain and simple.
Should they be allowed to buy the competition or crush them if they don't play ball, in a perfect world no, but this happens in every industry all over the world. Look at the car industry, steel, mining, petrochemicals, electronics. aerospace, entertainment (Disney etc..) the smaller players get bought or forced out until only a handful of multi-national companies remain.
Nobody is forcing you to use any of these services.
Don't use them and then complain about what evil companies they are.
If you did not use them they would not have that kind of power.
You are the problem and also the solution.
Leftist nonsense. Warehouse workers are easily replaceable. And that's reality for any unqualified job.
What is slavery is major part of american companies employing foreign top-notch specialists on highly-restrictive working visas.
Another mass slavery happens in 3rd world sweatshops providing 90% of goods consumed in the West. I wonder how much would all the goods cost if they were produced in America. An iPhone for $6000 anyone? A t-shirt for $70?
Yep. Get another job, better qualifications, or open your own business. Not that they are held hostages in the work places. American Dream is not Soviet Union with guaranteed workplace and punishments for being unemployed.
Sure, a much bigger challenge is outsourcing of everything in the global market. Protectionism, higher prices for everything and later competitive decline would be the outcome.
"Nobody is forcing you to use any of these services."
Not really true. The fact is that a high proportion of buisnesses are tied into these services, and have neither the cash nor the desire to move to something 'home-brew'. Many of us working in IT have to work within that framework. The facile 'just use Linux instead' often simply isn't an option, other than for specific (usually server-side) functions.
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No-one wants to use Google Cloud because they only JUST released Gemini, but internally it's being decommissioned in June 2027.
Their cloud infrastructure is in the process of being bricked. Constant malicious "errors"/outages etc are being used to drive customers away, reducing complaints as Cloud is being "deprecated" (internal used term) in December 2025. Some customers are even being offered cheap/free "contract paid off" if they want to go.
They have even stated in high-up meetings that Chrome is "a money drain" and they want rid of it. So Execs have started forcing unwanted changes such as limitations on ad-blocker extensions so the wind-down (again another internally used phrase for the end of chrome) will have a smaller userbase, and therefore less anger after the declaration they're switching to a chrome with security-updates only, , followed by final shutdown of all new versions.
Sorry, I simply don't believe that Google would ever regard its own browser as a 'money drain' - it gives them unparalleled ability to collect the telemetry they want, to inform and direct their core advertising business. Without control of the most widely-used browser they could not guarantee to be able to get all this.
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