Smith added that Microsoft recognizes that the CMA “will continue to review and assess additional issues relating to our products and services, including in the business software market. We are committed to working quickly and constructively to address these issues, including by providing all the information the CMA needs to move forward with its reviews.”
A welcome move
Matthew Sinclair, senior director and head of the London office of the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a group which represents a cross section of communications and technology firms, described the move by the CMA as “welcome news.”
It will, he said, “avoid overly broad and prescriptive interventions that would have impeded investment and innovation in UK cloud services. The regulator can focus its efforts on action to address specific issues, particularly restrictive software licensing terms for legacy software, which are costing UK users a fortune.”
A resilience and digital sovereignty issue
In response to both CMA decisions, Forrester senior analyst Dario Maisto said, “in times of increasing geopolitical volatility, organizations and authorities are reassessing risks coming from dependencies on foreign providers, to improve their digital sovereignty posture.”
He pointed out, “if we consider that Microsoft and AWS own some 70% of the European and UK public cloud market, we can easily understand how emerging sovereignty concerns add to existing concentration risk in a mix that urges action now more than ever.”
According to Maisto, Microsoft’s case is under even more regulatory scrutiny because European and UK organizations have a strong dependency on its productivity suite, regardless of the infrastructure layer.
