(Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp. has avoided the threat of a lengthy European Union antitrust probe into its cloud business after it brokered a deal with an Amazon.com Inc.-backed trade lobby that had complained about its software license agreements.
The association of Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe struck a deal with Microsoft on Wednesday that will see the lobby withdraw its complaint to the EU’s competition department, Microsoft said in a statement. CISPE had argued Microsoft made it too difficult for customers to change cloud providers by tying its business software to its Azure cloud services.
“After working with CISPE and its European members for more than a year, I am pleased that we’ve not only resolved their concerns of the past, but also worked together to define a path forward that brings even more competition to the cloud computing market in Europe and beyond,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in the statement.
The agreement between Microsoft and CISPE put an end to a long-running back-and-forth between the parties, that saw Microsoft make a spate of concessions in order to appease the concerns of cloud service providers. On the heels of those complaints, EU regulators had been informally asking market rivals and customers about Microsoft’s conduct.
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