The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has initiated an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s business practices in cloud computing, software licensing, cybersecurity products, and artificial intelligence, according to rb.ru, referencing Bloomberg.
The publication notes that Microsoft has faced complaints from competitors regarding complex software licensing terms and a multitude of products that have complicated the market position of several competing developers. For instance, the MS Office suite includes the Teams workspace for free, which hampers Zoom's competition with Microsoft.
According to sources from the publication, the commission’s antitrust lawyers plan to meet with Microsoft’s competitors to gather information on the corporation's competitive practices.
The decision to initiate the investigation was linked to a series of cybersecurity incidents, as Microsoft is a key software and cloud technology provider to the federal government, including the Pentagon.
Both Microsoft and the regulator declined to comment.
The investigation was personally approved by Commission Chair Lina Khan ahead of her resignation in January 2025, due to the transition of the presidential team and the anticipated arrival of a more business-friendly administration under Republican Donald Trump. Bloomberg highlights that the ultimate viability of the investigation depends on the decision of the next head of the commission. According to Doyle Barlow & Mazard lawyer Andre Barlow, the administration during Trump’s first term was an "aggressive enforcer of antitrust laws."
In its November 2023 report, the FTC emphasized its concerns regarding the high level of market monopolization in cloud computing. "Outages or other issues that degrade the quality of a cloud service provider's services can have a cascading effect on the economy or specific industries," the regulator's experts noted. The FTC believes that a lack of competition in the cloud market may lead major players to pay insufficient attention to the quality and safety of their products.