EU Competition Commissioner Vestager Sees No Antitrust Concerns Yet on Cloud Computing

Amazon and Microsoft can breathe a sigh of relief — for now.

Two of the biggest providers of cloud computing networks don’t raise competition concerns, the European Union’s Commissioner for Competition told Reuters Monday (March 28).

“No, so far we’ve had no concerns,” Margrethe Vestager told the news outlet when asked if she was troubled about potential abuse by their dominance.

Driven by COVID-19, cloud computing services have seen demand skyrocket and have been a major driver of growth at big tech firms.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), which calls itself the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, generated 13% of Amazon’s revenue in 2021 and 74% of its operating income. Azure, Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud unit, collected 37% of its overall sales.

Vestager said the giant tech firms can thank Gaia-X. The project, developed in Europe, is a global software framework that implements control and governance standards that can be applied to a cloud technology network. It promises transparency, controllability, portability and interoperability across data and services.

Gaia-X, she said, seeks to reduce the EU’s dependence on Silicon Valley giants, and boost competition.

“…I basically see it as pro-competitive when you have someone to show potential customers that there are more than two giants where you can place your business,” Vestager said.

Still, the power of the giant tech firms has still sparked worries among smaller companies.

In December, PYMNTS reported Microsoft could face a legal battle after self-hosted productivity platform Nextcloud, backed by a coalition of a 30 European companies, filed a complaint with EU and German antitrust authorities over Microsoft’s bundling of OneDrive with Windows.

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In the complaint, the Berlin-based software maker said Microsoft is bundling its OneDrive cloud, Teams and other services with Windows 10 and 11, which could lure users to the Microsoft 365 cloud without considering alternatives.