“The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an antitrust investigation against Microsoft.”, — write: epravda.com.ua
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft Corporation, which covers all areas of its activities – from cloud computing and software licensing to cybersecurity programs and AI products. Bloomberg writes about it. According to familiar interlocutors of the agency, after more than a year of informal interviews with competitors and business partners of the company, antimonopoly authorities have prepared a detailed request to force Microsoft to hand over information. According to one of the interlocutors, the demand of hundreds of pages was sent to the company after it was signed by the head of the FTC, Lina Hahn.Advertisement: “FTC antitrust lawyers will meet with Microsoft’s competitors next week to gather more information about the company’s business practices,” they said. sources on condition of anonymity.Advertisement: Microsoft and the FTC declined to comment. As Bloomberg notes, the FTC’s scrutiny of Microsoft’s cloud computing business has gained momentum following a series of cyber security incidents involving the company’s products. The company is a leading government contractor providing billions of dollars worth of software and cloud services to US agencies, including the Department of Defense. The demand for information from Microsoft is one of the “farewell shots” for Khan, who is stepping down after leading one of the agency’s most aggressive campaigns against corporations in decades. While business leaders hope President-elect Donald Trump will usher in an era of looser regulation, his new FTC chairman — as yet unnamed — will decide how to proceed on the matter, the agency added. According to Bloomberg sources, the focus of the current investigation is on combining popular office productivity and security software with cloud offerings. A November 2023 FTC report raised concerns that Microsoft’s monopolization of the cloud market could have cascading effects on the economy in the event of outages or other problems at one of the providers. It was noted that the failure of CrowdStrike software, designed to protect users from cyber threats, affected millions of Windows devices in the summer of 2024 and showed how widely Microsoft products are used and how they affect the global economy. Additionally, part of the investigation focuses on Microsoft’s Entra ID (formerly known as Azure Active Directory) security software, which helps authenticate users when logging into cloud services. Competitors complain that the terms of licensing and bundling of Microsoft software with cloud services make it difficult for other companies to compete in the field of authentication and cybersecurity. In particular, companies such as Slack and Zoom Communications Inc. say Microsoft’s free Teams video conferencing service bundled with products such as Word and Excel is an anticompetitive practice. We will remind: the US Department of Justice is considering the option of dividing Google after the court recognized that the company monopolized online search and advertising.
