natali_mis – stock.adobe.com
A Spanish trade association has filed a complaint with the country’s competition watchdog over accusations Microsoft’s ‘anti-competitive’ behaviour is harmful to startups
Microsoft is facing the prospect of an anti-trust probe at the hands of another overseas competition watchdog, following a complaint filed by a Spanish startup-focused trade association.
The Spanish Startup Association (SSA) confirmed in a statement on Tuesday 7 May that it had filed a complaint with Spain’s National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) “in response to the restrictive practices observed in the cloud services market”, which it claims are “significantly affecting both cloud providers and clients within the startup ecosystem in Spain”.
The SSA, which represents the interests of more than 700 startups in Spain, said “anti-competitive behaviour by Microsoft had been detected in the [cloud] market during recent years”.
To this point, the organisation accused Microsoft of using its dominant position in the operating systems and productivity software market to “force the use” of its public cloud Azure, which – in turn – “[imposes] artificial barriers that limit startups’ ability compete fairly and competitively”.
As stated in the SSA’s statement: “These [anti-competitive] practices would include barriers to data portability or contractual conditions that restrict competition in software licenses, which would make it difficult or prevent the free choice of providers of these services, reducing the capacity for choice and flexibility that startups need to be able to be resilient, innovate and grow.”
The timing of the SSA’s compliant comes nearly six months after the CNMC announced plans in late November 2023 to analyse the state of the competitive landscape within the country’s cloud sector, coupled with a pledge to make a series of recommendations to encourage competition to thrive.
In its complaint, the SSA called on the CNMC to carry out an “exhaustive investigation” to determine the extent of Microsoft’s violations of the competition regulations, and to push through changes that would allow startups to thrive “without being hindered by monopolistic or anti-competitive practices”.
SSA president Carlos Mateo said cloud computing is “one of the most important technologies” when it comes to driving the digital