European companies complain again about Microsoft in the EU because of poor earnings
American tech companies are increasingly gaining influence in the European market, and Brussels is trying to contain this growth in various ways. Some of the accusations against these companies are surprising, to say the least, and reveal a deep misunderstanding of how the Internet works. And, unfortunately, this misunderstanding comes from people who should be agents of change for the better. Last week, the news came about new complaint on the influence of a large American company, and the EU will again have to decide what to do.
What are they complaining about
A coalition of European companies led by Nextcloud GmbH has filed a formal complaint with the European Commission about how Microsoft is integrating its services, such as OneDrive, into the operating system. The coalition advocates "a level playing field" and claims that Microsoft is anticompetitive in its approach to bundling its services with Windows.
"Microsoft is integrating 365 deeper into its portfolio of services and software offerings," says a document from the coalition. It's almost impossible to compete with Microsoft's SaaS (software as a service) offerings, they said. Their main complaint is the integration of OneDrive and Teams as default apps in Windows 11. The coalition cites the controversy of the 1990s and the aggressive imposition of Internet Explorer on Windows as the default browser. The coalition's complaints concern not only Microsoft, but also Amazon and Google.
What do they want
“In a broader context, you can see that in recent years Microsoft, Google and Amazon have increased their share to 66% of the entire European market, while local providers have taken from 26% to 16%. This behavior seems to be at the core of the growth of tech giants. and it must be stopped, "- says part of the document.
Coalition, which, in addition to Nextcloud, includes 27 other companies, including LibreOffice, The Document Foundation, Free Software Foundation Europe and others, Demands Brussels to prohibit Microsoft from bundling, pre-installing and enforcing its own servicesthat will ensure fair competition.
A source: nextcloud