The big picture: Dozens of European tech companies have accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the industry because of the way it aggressively pushes and bundles proprietary services (OneDrive, Office 365, Teams, etc.) with Windows. . German cloud storage company Nextcloud has revealed that it has formally called on the EU and German authorities to end Microsoft’s anti-competitive behavior, and that it also plans to file a complaint in France with it. ‘a coalition of nearly 30 partners to establish a fair game. field.
According to Nextcloud, the anti-competitive practices of tech giants such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon have allowed Big Tech to capture 66% of the total European market share over the years, while local suppliers have seen their share reduced to 16%, compared to 26%.
The German cloud computing company is leading an initiative against Microsoft and has organized the “Level playing field” Coalition to voice its concerns with the EU. Microsoft’s OneDrive integration with Windows, which rivals competing file storage services, has been compared to the browser wars of the late ’90s, when it combined Internet Explorer to compete with Netscape’s browser. There is also a much more recent example from Microsoft demonstrating similar behavior with Edge.
Nextcloud accused Microsoft of pushing OneDrive on users by preinstalling the service as part of the operating system installation, offering users free storage, and promoting the app on Windows with alerts. contextual. Microsoft Teams, which was the subject of Slack’s European trial last year, was also highlighted, as the app has now become a default part of Windows 11.
The coalition includes the developers of LibreOffice, The Document Foundation, OpenProject and dozens of others
“This makes it almost impossible to compete with their SaaS services,” Nextcloud noted on its antitrust site, where the cabinet is also bringing together additional coalition partners and released the following set of demands for the EU:
- No barriers (by bundling, preinstalling or pushing Microsoft services) for a level playing field.
- Open standards and interoperability that make migration easy. It gives consumers a free choice.
Nextcloud says it has filed a complaint with German authorities over declining interest in the initial complaint filed with the EU earlier this year, and plans to file one with French authorities soon.
The company also believes that the EU’s proposed digital markets law could rule Microsoft’s gatekeeper position to give small players a fair chance to compete in the European market.
