The US Federal Commerce Fee has opened an antitrust investigation of Microsoft Corp., drilling into every part from the corporate’s cloud computing and software program licensing companies to cybersecurity choices and synthetic intelligence merchandise.
After greater than a yr of conducting casual interviews with rivals and enterprise companions, antitrust enforcers have crafted an in depth request to drive Microsoft to show over data, in line with folks acquainted with the matter. The demand, which is a whole lot of pages lengthy, has been despatched to the corporate after FTC Chair Lina Khan signed off, stated one of many folks.
FTC antitrust legal professionals are set to satisfy with Microsoft rivals subsequent week to assemble extra details about the Redmond, Washington-based firm’s enterprise practices, in line with two different folks acquainted with the plans who just like the others requested to not be named discussing a confidential matter.
Microsoft and the FTC declined to remark.
The FTC’s scrutiny of Microsoft’s cloud computing enterprise gained steam after a string of cybersecurity incidents that concerned the corporate’s merchandise. The corporate is a high authorities contractor, offering billions of {dollars} in software program and cloud providers to US companies together with the Protection Division.
The Microsoft data demand is one among Khan’s parting photographs as she steps down after helming some of the aggressive pushes in opposition to consolidated company energy the company has delivered in many years. Whereas enterprise leaders are hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will usher in an period of lighter regulation, it should fall to his new FTC chair — nonetheless unnamed — to resolve how you can proceed with the case.
The FTC inquiry renews scrutiny of Microsoft for its enterprise practices greater than 25 years after the federal government sued the corporate over related conduct involving bundling its Home windows working system and browser and unsuccessfully tried to interrupt it up.
A key focus of the present probe is Microsoft’s bundling of each its widespread workplace productiveness and safety software program with its cloud choices, in line with the folks acquainted with the knowledge request.
Microsoft’s cybersecurity failings, mixed with its heft as a authorities contractor, are seen by the FTC for instance of the corporate’s problematic energy over the market, these folks stated.
In a November 2023 report, the FTC highlighted issues that the concentrated nature of the cloud market signifies that “outages, or different points that degrade the service of a cloud supplier, might have a cascading affect on the financial system or particular sectors.”
The CrowdStrike crash that affected thousands and thousands of units working on Microsoft Home windows programs earlier this yr was itself a testomony to the widespread use of the corporate’s merchandise and the way it immediately impacts the worldwide financial system.
A portion of the probe is targeted on the corporate’s practices associated to safety software program referred to as Microsoft Entra ID — previously often called Azure Lively Listing — which helps authenticate customers logging in to cloud-based software program, a few of the folks stated.
Opponents have complained that Microsoft’s licensing phrases and bundling of software program with cloud providers makes it tougher for rival authentication and cybersecurity corporations to compete.
Corporations resembling Salesforce Inc.’s Slack and Zoom Communications Inc. have stated that Microsoft’s observe of freely giving its Groups video-conferencing software program without spending a dime in a bundle with widespread software program merchandise like Phrase and Excel is anticompetitive and makes it tougher for them to compete.
