Microsoft’s Windows software bundling practices spark complaint from coalition of companies
As usual, Microsoft’s business practices are making enemies.
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What you need to know
A coalition of 30 companies has formed to take a stand against “Big Tech” and the danger it poses to EU businesses and consumers. Specifically, though the coalition namedrops Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, it takes the most direct aim at theWindows 11maker in its actual complaints and demands.
You can see the coalition’s multitude of statements on the situation over at itslanding page, wherein the companies involved in the group reiterate their displeasure with Microsoft’s practices. Here’s the coalition’s opening statement on the matter:
Microsoft is integrating 365 deeper and deeper in their service and software portfolio, including Windows. OneDrive is pushed wherever users deal with file storage and Teams is a default part of Windows 11. This makes it nearly impossible to compete with their SaaS services. 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%. Behavior like this is at the core of this growth of the tech giants and has to be stopped.
As to what the group demands, it wants no “gate-keeping,” which it defines as the bundling or preinstallation of Microsoft services on Windows or associated efforts to “push” services that disrupt an otherwise even playing field. It also wants “open standards and interoperability” so migrations are easy for consumers. Though there is a lack of clarity on that last demand, one can imagine it’s aligned with common complaints lobbed at Microsoft in the past,such as Slackarguing that Teams' and Office’s integrations made it harder for Slack to have a fair shot at attracting consumers in the same capacity as Microsoft’s services.
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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.
