|
Ofcom, which started looking into cloud services last year, said
it was particularly worried about the practices of Amazon Web
Services (AWS) and Microsoft because of their market positions,
and planned to ask the competition regulator to investigate.
Amazon and Microsoft have a combined market share of 60-70%.
Alphabet's Google, their closest competitor, has just 5-10%.
Ofcom said technical restrictions and discounts to encourage
customers to use a single provider for all their needs even when
better quality alternatives were available could also be
anti-competitive.
"High barriers to switching are already harming competition in
what is a fast-growing market," Ofcom director Fergal Farragher
said.
"We think more in-depth scrutiny is needed to make sure it's
working well for people and businesses who rely on these
services."
The fast-growing, multi-billion-dollar cloud computing business
has attracted attention from regulators in Europe as well as
Britain.
Microsoft has offered to change its practices to settle
antitrust complaints filed by smaller cloud computing rivals to
EU antitrust regulators, a person with direct knowledge of the
matter said last month.
Google however said such a move would not solve broader concerns
about Microsoft's licensing terms.
Both Microsoft and AWS said they would continue to work with
Ofcom ahead of the publication of its final report in October.
"We remain committed to ensuring the UK cloud industry stays
highly competitive, and to supporting the transformative
potential of cloud technologies to help accelerate growth across
the UK economy," said a Microsoft spokesperson.
AWS said customers in Britain were able to choose between a wide
variety of providers.
"At AWS (Amazon Web Services), we design our cloud services to
give customers the freedom to build the solution that is right
for them, with the technology of their choice," an AWS
spokesperson said.
"This has driven increased competition across a range of sectors
in the UK economy by broadening access to innovative, highly
secure, and scalable IT services."
(Reporting by Sarah Young and Paul Sandle; Editing by Jan
Harvey)
[© 2023 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
