Microsoft has not commented on the complaint publicly. Nextcloud has also filed a complaint with German antitrust authorities and there are plans to file a similar complaint in France. The complaint with the EC is not the only complaint against Microsoft over allegations of anticompetitive behavior. “Together with the other members of the coalition, we are asking the antitrust authorities in Europe to enforce a level playing field, giving customers a free choice and to give competition a fair chance.” “This kind of behavior is bad for the consumer, for the market and, of course, for local businesses in the EU,” Nextcloud Chief Executive Officer Frank Karlitschek said in a statement. The demands are, first, no gatekeeping by bundling, pre-installing or pushing Microsoft services for a level playing field, and second, open standards and interoperability that make an easy migration possible. The coalition, which along with Nextcloud includes 27 other companies and groups, notable among them LibreOffice, the Document Foundation and the Free Software Foundation Europe, have two demands for the EU. “Behavior like this is at the core of this growth of the tech giants and has to be stopped.” “In the wider context, you see that over the last years, Microsoft, Google and Amazon have grown their market share to 66% of the total European market, with local providers contracting from 26% to 16%,” the coalition noted. The obvious parallel to the complaint is Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows in the late 1990s and the coalition specifically mentions the famous case.Īlthough the complaint is targeted at Microsoft, the coalition also mentions Google LLC and Amazon Web Services Inc. 26 statement, making it “nearly impossible to compete with their SaaS services.” Specific mention is made of OneDrive and Teams being a default part of Windows 11. “Microsoft is integrating 365 deeper and deeper in their service and software portfolio, including Windows,” the coalition claimed in a Nov. The “Coalition for a Level Playing Field” claims that Microsoft is engaging in anticompetitive behavior in bundling services with Windows. bundling services, including OneDrive, with Windows 10 and 11. The coalition has two demands for the EU, it wants Microsoft to be prevented from bundling, pre-installing, or pushing Microsoft services so others can compete on platforms like Windows and it wants more open standards so that users can seamlessly switch between software solutions rather than being forced to pick, for example, Microsoft Office.A coalition of European Union companies and groups led by Nextcloud GmbH has filed a complaint with the European Commission over Microsoft Corp. As a European business, if your internal teams use hosted services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive to handle customer information. Over the years, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have grown their European market share to 66% while local providers declined from 26% to 16%. The coalition believes that actions like this make it impossible for them and other smaller firms to compete so it wants the EU to do something about it. To back up its claims, it has assembled a coalition of organisations who would also benefit from the action including Tutanota, OnlyOffice, Free Software Foundation Europe, The Document Foundation, European Digital SME Alliance, and many, many more.Īccording to the coalition, Microsoft is more deeply integrating its 365 services into Windows, for example, OneDrive and Teams ship by default and pushes people to use them. The cloud storage company, Nextcloud, is leading a coalition against Microsoft in the European Union over what it claims to be anti-competitive behaviour.
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