Thursday, November 28th 2024
FTC Launches Major Antitrust Investigation into Microsoft, First in 25 Years
According to the original report from Bloomberg, the Federal Trade Commission has initiated a comprehensive antitrust investigation into Microsoft Corporation, incorporating about a year of conducted informal interviews with Microsoft's competitors about its business practices. The probe encompasses Microsoft's cloud computing services, software licensing practices, cybersecurity offerings, and AI products. The investigation has now culminated in an extensive information request spanning hundreds of pages. FTC chair Lina Khan has authorized this demand for documents, signaling a serious escalation in the agency's oversight of the company. A key focus of the investigation is Microsoft's practice of bundling its popular Office productivity suite and security software with its cloud services.
Critics, including companies like Slack and Zoom, argue that Microsoft's strategy of including Teams video-conferencing software free with Word and Excel creates an unfair competitive advantage. The probe has gained momentum following several cybersecurity incidents involving Microsoft's products. As a major government contractor providing billions in software and cloud services to US agencies, including the Defense Department, Microsoft's security practices have drawn particular attention. The government's Cyber Safety Review Board recently concluded that Microsoft's security culture "requires an overhaul" given the company's role in the technology infrastructure ecosystem. This investigation makes Microsoft the fifth major tech company to face antitrust scrutiny in recent years, joining Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google. It also represents a return after 25 years to regulatory challenges for Microsoft, which faced a similar antitrust lawsuit in the late 1990s over its Windows operating system and browser bundling practices.
Sources:
Bloomberg, via The Verge
Critics, including companies like Slack and Zoom, argue that Microsoft's strategy of including Teams video-conferencing software free with Word and Excel creates an unfair competitive advantage. The probe has gained momentum following several cybersecurity incidents involving Microsoft's products. As a major government contractor providing billions in software and cloud services to US agencies, including the Defense Department, Microsoft's security practices have drawn particular attention. The government's Cyber Safety Review Board recently concluded that Microsoft's security culture "requires an overhaul" given the company's role in the technology infrastructure ecosystem. This investigation makes Microsoft the fifth major tech company to face antitrust scrutiny in recent years, joining Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Google. It also represents a return after 25 years to regulatory challenges for Microsoft, which faced a similar antitrust lawsuit in the late 1990s over its Windows operating system and browser bundling practices.
34 Comments on FTC Launches Major Antitrust Investigation into Microsoft, First in 25 Years
Then add Apple, Amazon, Ngreedia and facebook.
yeah, i know, nothing will happen to any of them.
However the incoming administration promises to do away with all agency independence. That combined with the supreme court ruling that presidents are immune to prosecution of all ‘official’ acts means that the incoming president can rule like a king. Microsoft can just simply compliment the king’s hair and it all goes away.
I hope they do something about microsoft mail servers policy: by default it flags mail sent by any mail server as spam/junk, whatever the mail content is. This means as a business owner if you want to self host your own mail server, most of your customers wont see your mail because it will be flagged as spam. It forces you to use a microsoft account or an authorized microsoft partner. Textbook definition of abusing a dominant position. Gmail doesnt do this at all.
>>...given the company's role in the technology infrastructure ecosystem...
If somebody thinks that source codes of Microsoft software, like OSs, Office, etc, are very good or almost perfect in quality You Are Wrong.
Quality of Source codes of Microsoft software is something you can Not imagine...
Source codes are Messy, Full of Fixes, Bloated solutions ( when more than 1,500 code lines are implemented instead of 100 optimized
code lines ), Full of Workarounds, Workarounds over Workarounds, and so on. Teams inside the company use different techniques for
logging, code styles are Not enforced, etc.
Unfortunately, it is a common trend in software industry these days! Well, I stop here.
The MS Office ecosystem is hard to break but there is also Google Apps and Apple Apps for productivity. A company like Zoom should merge with other companies to come out with a suite of productivity apps that serve a larger part of the business ecosystem and not just one small part of it.
I would consider an integration with LibreOffice open source software. Some guys I know do Not use MS Office at all.
You think I’ll be begging to use slack after they up there rates per user to cover the legal fees? Like???No business owners need to stop trying to do things themselves or playing sysadmin and over riding there talent. Don’t spend bottom dollar on a VPS with abused IP space and let your admin take his time setting up DMARC, DKIM and SPF records and this problem goes away.
And even when multiple customers whitelist you on their accounts over the span of several months, your mail is still flagged as spam / junk by default.
When you use the same server to send to anything but microsoft (gmail, ect), it works flawlessly.
I use a microsoft email account myself for this exact reason, and even large businesses companies mail go often in my junk folder because they use their own mail servers.
Some businnesses need strict confidentiality and they cannot rely on using external mail providers to handle their data.
EU fined many companies in the past but EU also has No authority to force Microsoft to spin-off any internal software groups.
And of couse Slack for its price is too much, but FTC wants to regulate the market to "try to help" everyone. I don't believe it is going to happen though, but we have to wait and see.
Have fun boneheads! The worst is yet to come...
@ nadella
You're next!That is a very distinct possibility.
Really though, I just want their OS division separated and turned into a proper OS-making division again, producing something that is a proper successor to Win7 or 10, rather than 11 (which is the equivalent of Vista and 8).
>>...Chrome, FF, Opera, and Brave for browsers, then Office 365, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, or Corel for Office suite options...
The problem with monopolies in IT is more complex.
There are deals between Intel, AMD, Microsoft, Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer, NVIDIA, etc. When a US corporation ABC purchases some number of laptops for employees these computers will be pre-installed with a latest set of Microsoft software, like OS and Microsoft Office 365 ( including Teams for video meetings ). An employee of the ABC corporation has some freedom of selecting a browser, a search engine, etc. It is up to the employee if Google or Bing are used to search on the Internet.
In order to break Microsoft monopoly US Department of Justice must ban a delivery of computers to big corporations with pre-installed Microsoft software. This is absolutely unlikely.
Microsoft will Win All the Cases in a Court claiming something like "...For example, a customer can buy a Dell Precision Mobile Workstation with Windows 11, or with Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. The customer has a complete freedom here. Where is monopoly?"