The US Federal Commerce Fee has opened an antitrust investigation of Microsoft Corp., drilling into all the things 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 power Microsoft to show over data, in accordance with folks aware of the matter. The demand, which is lots of of pages lengthy, has been despatched to the corporate after FTC Chair Lina Khan signed off, stated one of many folks.
FTC antitrust attorneys are set to satisfy with Microsoft rivals subsequent week to collect extra details about the Redmond, Washington-based firm’s enterprise practices, in accordance with two different folks aware of 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 businesses together with the Protection Division.
The Microsoft data demand is considered one of Khan’s parting pictures as she steps down after helming one of the vital aggressive pushes towards consolidated company energy the company has delivered in a long time. Whereas enterprise leaders are hoping that President-elect Donald Trump will usher in an period of lighter regulation, it is going to fall to his new FTC chair — nonetheless unnamed — to determine the best way to 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 comparable 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 accordance with the folks aware of the knowledge request.
Microsoft’s cybersecurity failings, mixed with its heft as a authorities contractor, are seen by the FTC for example 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 implies that “outages, or other issues that degrade the service of a cloud provider, could have a cascading impact on the economy or specific sectors.”
The CrowdStrike crash that affected tens of millions of units working on Microsoft Home windows techniques earlier this yr was itself a testomony to the widespread use of the corporate’s merchandise and the way it immediately impacts the worldwide economic system.
A portion of the probe is concentrated on the corporate’s practices associated to safety software program known as Microsoft Entra ID — previously often called Azure Energetic Listing — which helps authenticate customers logging in to cloud-based software program, a few of the folks stated.
Rivals have complained that Microsoft’s licensing phrases and bundling of software program with cloud providers makes it more durable for rival authentication and cybersecurity corporations to compete.
Firms resembling Salesforce Inc.’s Slack and Zoom Communications Inc. have stated that Microsoft’s apply of giving freely its Groups video-conferencing software program totally free in a bundle with widespread software program merchandise like Phrase and Excel is anticompetitive and makes it more durable for them to compete.
