OSes
Brit regulator has ‘heard’ prospects cannot all the time ‘successfully mix software program from Microsoft with that of different suppliers’
The UK’s Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) is taking a better take a look at Microsoft’s enterprise software program empire, launching a strategic market standing investigation into the corporate’s ecosystem.
The probe, which is the fourth because the UK’s digital markets competitors regime got here into power final yr, will decide whether or not Microsoft needs to be designated as having strategic market standing, which might permit the CMA to implement interventions to help competitors.
In March, the CMA announced that the investigation was coming. The regulator was involved that Microsoft’s software program licensing practices had been decreasing competitors within the cloud.
In today’s announcement, the CMA mentioned it had “heard that UK prospects could not all the time be capable of successfully mix software program from Microsoft with that of different suppliers, limiting their potential to get entry to the very best merchandise on the best costs.”
Microsoft is not any stranger to regulatory friction. In 2025, it described calls from AWS and Google for the UK competitors regulator to “intervene and constrain the value” it fees prospects to run wares on these rivals’ cloud plaforms as “extraordinary and unprecedented.”
Two yr prior, Google branded Microsoft’s cloud software program licensing a “tax” paid by prospects as a penalty for not operating Microsoft software program on Azure infrastructure. It claims that Microsoft fees as much as 4 instances extra, for instance, to run Home windows Server on GCP. AWS has beforehand moaned about this too.
In addition to assessing whether or not Microsoft is utilizing its place to restrict buyer alternative, the CMA investigation “contains how AI opponents are in a position to combine with Microsoft’s enterprise software program, giving prospects entry to AI software program throughout suppliers to greatest go well with their wants.”
Microsoft is pushing Copilot AI into as many Microsoft 365 subscriptions as it could, even creating a brand new tier, E7, aimed particularly at AI providers.
In a press release, Nicky Stewart, senior advisor to the Open Cloud Coalition – a commerce affiliation Microsoft beforehand dismissed as a Google foyer group – mentioned:
“This investigation must be each fast and conclusive. It should deal with Microsoft’s unfair licensing practices as soon as and for all, giving the UK cloud market a stage taking part in subject and the arrogance to innovate and make investments for the long run.”
Reg readers shouldn’t count on outcomes anytime quickly. It took 21 months for the CMA to publish the outcomes of an investigation into the UK cloud providers market, through which it mentioned Microsoft and AWS had been utilizing their dominance to hurt UK cloud prospects. It claimed Microsoft, for instance, might have charged UK enterprise prospects £500 million extra yearly to run its wares in AWS and Google clouds than they’d have paid to run them in Azure.
A key concern from that investigation – whether or not Microsoft’s software program licensing practices had been decreasing competitors in cloud providers – has knowledgeable this one.
This newest inquiry should be accomplished inside 9 months, and a call on designating Microsoft with SMS is scheduled to be reached by February 2027.
For its half, a Microsoft spokesperson informed The Register, “We’re dedicated to working rapidly and constructively with the CMA to facilitate its assessment of the enterprise software program market.”
The investigation will probably be wide-ranging, encompassing productiveness purposes, working programs, databases, and safety software program.
Sarah Cardell, Chief Govt of the CMA, mentioned, “Our goal is to know how these markets are creating, Microsoft’s place inside them and to contemplate what, if any, focused motion could also be wanted to make sure UK organizations can profit from alternative, innovation and aggressive costs.”
Authorities within the US, Europe, Brazil, South Africa and Japan are additionally intently monitoring Microsoft’s licensing insurance policies. ®