Microsoft's €20m European Cloud Providers Settlement Draws Mixed Reactions

[Nomad76]

Microsoft has agreed to pay €20 million to settle an antitrust complaint filed by Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), a European cloud providers association. The deal aims to address concerns about Microsoft's cloud product licensing practices, also, Microsoft will develop Azure Stack HCI for European cloud providers and compensate CISPE members for recent licensing costs. On the other side, CISPE will withdraw its EU complaint, cease supporting similar global complaints, and establish an independent European Cloud Observatory to monitor the product's development.

The settlement excludes major providers like AWS, Google Cloud, and AliCloud. While CISPE hails this as a victory, critics argue it's insufficient. AWS spokesperson Alia Ilyas said that Microsoft was only making "limited concessions for some CISPE members that demonstrate there are no technical barriers preventing it from doing what's right for every cloud customer". Google Cloud suggests more action is needed against anti-competitive behavior, and UK-based cloud company Civo's CEO Mark Boost questions the deal's long-term impact on the industry. Boost stated, "However they position it, we cannot shy away from what this deal appears to be: a global powerful company paying for the silence of a trade body, and avoiding having to make fundamental changes to their software licensing practices on a global basis". Despite resolving the CISPE complaint, Microsoft faces ongoing regulatory scrutiny worldwide. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority launched a cloud computing market investigation in October 2023 while the US Federal Trade Commission is conducting two separate probes involving Microsoft. The first FTC investigation, initiated in January 2024, examines AI services and partnerships of major tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Anthropic, and OpenAI. The second focuses specifically on Microsoft, OpenAI, and Nvidia, assessing their impact and behavior in the AI sector.



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[Chaitanya]

That fine seems quite small compared to other fine.

On slightly lighter side of things:

 

[bonehead123]

Ummm.... a few million here, a few billion there, it's all in a days work (& profits) @M$.....

 

[tsunami2311]

The Fines are never big enough which why they all do what they do

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Add three more zeros, and it would be more appropriate. Or make it 10% of the company's market cap. If they're gonna be worth $3.8 trillion, let them pay $380 billion in fines. That'd wake them up.

 

[Chrispy_]

Fines that don't scale with earnings are becoming more pointless as time goes on.

At the individual scale you have billionaires just considering fines as a trivial "cost to do that" such as parking your Ferarri for €2500, building this mansion without any of the relevant permissions for an extra €1m, not paying tax on particular earnings etc as a minor <1% inconvenience.

At the corporation end you have the megacorps just doing what they want. €20m is nothing to Microsoft. Averaged over the last year, Microsoft makes about €1m per minute in profit. That's profit, not revenue - so this entire debacle cost Microsoft less than the downtime caused by, for example, a single 30-minute company-wide announcement by Satya to his employees explaining how they got away with doing what they want with zero repercussions yet again.

If the fines/settlements were 1000x greater, I'm still not sure it would be enough to discourage the big 8 tech companies from lawless exploitation (Alphabet, Amazon, AMD, Apple, Intel, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia)

 

[Carillon]

This is not a fine, they bought this CISPE thing and ordered them to shut the f up

 

[Minus Infinity]

The fine is smaller than Nadella's pay packet. Total insult and joke. Big tech smashed with a limp celery stick yet again.

 

[AusWolf]

It's not a fine!

It's money offered by Microsoft to CISPE in exchange for withdrawing charges, never accusing them of anything again and shutting the f up. A bribe, if you will.

 

[bobsled]

Good job Microsoft! The self-represented European bodies (behaving like beggars) put out their hands for yet more money… whilst doing nothing productive.

Love Google’s comment about being against monopolistic behaviour - Absolutely, when it’s not them being targeted.