UK competitors regulator barely delays its provisional report on the cloud computing sector and whether or not “behavioural” cures are required
The main cloud computing gamers must wait till after the Christmas interval, to see the conclusions of the British competitors regulator concerning the present market.
The Competitors and Markets Authority (CMA) updated its administrative timetable on Wednesday that exposed the regulator will ship its provisional choice in January 2025, rather than the previously slated December 2024.
A ultimate report into the cloud computing market remains to be anticipated to reach in July 2025, which is able to verify whether or not “behavioural” cures are required to handle competitors issues on this facet of the Atlantic.
Cloud computing market
The UK probe into the cloud computing sector began in September 2022, when Ofcom had introduced it will “study the place of Amazon, Microsoft and Google in cloud providers,” as a part of a “new programme of labor to make sure that digital communications markets are working properly for folks and companies within the UK.”
A yr later in October 2023 Ofcom introduced that its market examine had “uncovered features that could limit competition in the cloud segment”.
It subsequently asked the CMA to investigate Amazon and Microsoft’s dominance of the UK cloud market, and to a lesser extent, Google Cloud Platform.
The cloud computing market is dominated by the 2 American tech giants (Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure).
The sector additionally entails quite a lot of smaller service suppliers similar to Google Cloud Platform, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud and others.
Some studies have advised that the British regulator may consider AWS and Microsoft, given their market main place.
US investigations
It must be famous that on the opposite facet of the pond, the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) stated final week it’s launching a ‘sweeping investigation’ into Microsoft’s practices, confirming earlier reports of a potential investigation.
The wide-ranging FTC investigation will reportedly concentrate on Microsoft’s software program licensing, cybersecurity, and AI, however might embrace cloud computing.
A £1 billion lawsuit was filed this week in London against Microsoft, alleging the software program big has been overcharging cloud clients to license Home windows Server, in the event that they decide to make use of a cloud platform apart from Microsoft Azure.
The FTC can be investigating Amazon, after the American regulator alleged the agency had engaged in a ‘deceptive’ Prime sign-up and cancellation process for hundreds of thousands of consumers.
The US DoJ can be investigating Google, and advisable that the search engine big sell off its Chrome browser.
