> One of the cloud vendors also controls a major operating system that customers need to run particular workloads, and they offer wildly different pricing for running it on their own cloud compared to other clouds.
This is one of those times when I feel: how aren't they justified in doing this?
They made the OS. They keep it up, they license it out, they use it, they improve it, they so-on - all without the assistance of anyone outside of Microsoft.
Then they're being told: they can't bundle it, like a cable TV provider bundles channels. They can't optimize it for the systems that they're running it on. They can't do anything with it, unless someone else is doing it, too, in the same way, for the same cost. How does this make sense?
I really feel like all of this "anti-trust" is starting to over-step its bounds. Microsoft isn't undercutting the hardware pricing if you use their OS on their cloud. They're bundling - and giving you the OS/SQL licensing for free/cheap. Like getting HBO for "free" when you pay for Disney. It's not comparable to giving you free DataDog when you use Kubernetes in Azure cloud. Basically: they're not doing something that is unsustainable for them, like when Amazon was selling diapers at below-cost to shut out a competitor. Microsoft can license their own software this way, and keep doing it, and continue doing it, and it's just their business. Why is that a problem? Let Amazon et. al make their own GUI-based OS and *compete*, right? What Microsoft is doing *is* competition, and is actual and valid competition.
Even so, I'm not these market-watchdogs, I'm not the trade groups, and no one is listening to a commentator on The Reg, so I guess we'll see. I don't like MS, I actively avoid using their software, I wish they would just go away, but I do feel that they are *not* acting anti-competitively.