Microsoft hit with Spanish startup group’s complaint

The Spanish Startup Association, which represents over 700 startups in Spain, cited a number of allegedly anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in recent years

Microsoft was hit with a Spanish startup group’s complaint about its cloud practices to the Spanish antitrust regulator on Tuesday, the latest grievance over its fast-growing cloud computing services.

The U.S. tech giant ranks second in the cloud computing sector, behind market leader Amazon but is anticipated to close the gap quickly as a clutch of generative artificial intelligence features powered by OpenAI’s technology attract business users.

The Spanish Startup Association, which represents over 700 startups in Spain, cited a number of allegedly anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in recent years.

Microsoft has not only taken advantage of the dominant position in the markets of OS (Windows) and traditional productivity software (Microsoft Office, Windows Server, SQL Server) to compel the use of its Azure cloud, but they have also imposed artificial barriers that curb the ability of startups to compete fairly and competitively, the complaint seen by Reuters said.

These practices include hurdles to data portability or contractual conditions that curb competition in software licenses, preventing the free choice of providers of these services, reducing the capacity for choice and flexibility that startups require to be able to be resilient, innovate and grow, the document stated.

Microsoft defended its cloud practices.

Microsoft provides choice and flexibility for our customers to switch to another cloud provider at no cost, and our licensing terms let our customers and other cloud providers run and offer Microsoft software on every cloud, a company spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said: We will engage with the Spanish Startup Association to learn more about its concerns.

The association called on the Spanish competition watchdog to launch an investigation and to take urgent measures to ensure a competitive market.

We believe that all firms should be able to compete in an environment of equality so as not to be left behind either as customers or as firms providing this technology, Carlos Mateo, president of the Spanish Startup Association, said in a statement.