Athira Sethu
Kochi, 4 December 2024
Microsoft is facing allegations and a $1.27 billion lawsuit in the UK of doing unfair pricing practices. According to reports, the firm allegedly overcharged its cloud-service customers who use competing service provisions from Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Alibaba Cloud.
The lawsuit says Microsoft offers discounted prices for Windows Server software only when it’s used on its cloud platform, Azure. In turn, customers using competing platforms have to pay a higher price, which in this case makes non-Microsoft services more expensive. According to critics, this practice will force businesses to use Microsoft’s Azure service instead, thus reducing competition in the cloud services market.
The lawsuit was filed by competition lawyer Maria Luisa Stasi before the Competition Appeal Tribunal on December 3. She said, “Microsoft is punishing UK businesses and organizations for using competing cloud services by making them pay more for Windows Server.” The case would expose Microsoft’s alleged anti-competitive behavior and compensate businesses that have been overcharged.
It is a group action lawsuit, and thousands of companies from the UK automatically fall under it. If they win, hundreds of companies may recover compensation.
Microsoft has yet to comment on this matter in public, but the case points to increasing concerns about fair competition in rapidly expanding market-cloud computing.
