France’s OVHcloud Files Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft’s Cloud Services

OVHcloud, a French cloud computing company, is filing an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday (March 16).

This adds more fuel to the fire on recent critiques of Microsoft’s competitive practices, although the company has mostly avoided much of the controversy that its tech rivals have experienced.

OVHcloud’s complaint is focused on the way Microsoft launches its products, which could make it more expensive to use cloud services that aren’t Microsoft’s Azure cloud.

“Through abusing its dominant position, Microsoft undermines fair competition and limits consumer choice in the cloud computing services market,” a spokeswoman for OVHcloud said, according to the report.

The report noted that a Microsoft spokesman didn’t confirm whether the company had been notified of the complaint.

“Cloud providers enjoy many options to provide cloud services to their customers using Microsoft software, whether purchased by the customer or the partner,” the Microsoft spokesman said in a statement. “We’re continuously evaluating how we can best support partners and make Microsoft software available to customers across all environments, including those of other cloud providers.”

Governments have been targeting Big Tech firms with critiques as of late, but Microsoft hasn’t been central to that.

Per the report, the company has positioned itself as having learned from antitrust battles from decades ago now, when the Department of Justice and the European Union sued it for its business practices.

PYMNTS wrote that Microsoft recently finalized a $16 billion acquisition of artificial intelligence (AI) and speech tech firm Nuance Communications.

See also: Microsoft Finalizes $16B Nuance Purchase

Scott Guthrie, Microsoft’s executive vice president looking at the cloud and AI group, said the acquisition would add Nuance’s conversational AI and ambient intelligence to Microsoft’s offerings.

According to Nuance CEO Mark Benjamin, the combination of Nuance’s expertise in healthcare, financial services, retail, telecommunications and other industries will allow for more innovation and quickly-delivered solutions.

Nuance’s main offering is transcription technology, popular with doctors and serving over three-quarters of U.S. hospitals.