Featured in this episode of Chaos Lever
Microsoft is no stranger to anti-competitive lawsuits, and neither is Advertising Company Google, but this might be a first. ACG has filed an official complaint with the US FTC over what they say are anti-competitive practices by the admittedly much bigger cloud provider.
At the heart of the complaint is an alleged practice of “overly complex agreements that seek to lock in clients to their ecosystems.” To which I say, “Yes, AND?” It’s no secret that Microsoft and all other cloud providers design their services and licensing in such a way as to provide an advantage to customers who practice cloud monogamy.
One such example is Windows licensing in Azure versus Google Cloud or AWS. Customers with existing Windows licenses can use their license largesse on Azure workloads, but not on EC2 or Google Compute Instances. ACG isn’t wrong that it’s unfair, but it also isn’t exactly known for its own fair dealing.
Advertising Company Google is currently facing an antitrust lawsuit over their own exclusionary agreements that is set to go to trial in September. Maybe the simple answer is that all of these companies should be investigated for antitrust by the FTC. I’m sure they’d all be happy to have the government take a closer look at their business practices.
Or rather I’d be happy. Well, happier.