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 power Microsoft to show over info, based on folks accustomed to the matter. The demand, which is tons of of pages lengthy, has been despatched to the corporate after FTC Chair Lina Khan signed off, mentioned one of many folks.
FTC antitrust attorneys are set to fulfill with Microsoft rivals subsequent week to collect extra details about the Redmond, Washington-based firm’s enterprise practices, based on two different folks accustomed to 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 info demand is considered one of Khan’s parting photographs as she steps down after helming one of the 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 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 standard workplace productiveness and safety software program with its cloud choices, based on the folks accustomed to the data 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 mentioned.
In a November 2023 report, the FTC highlighted considerations that the concentrated nature of the cloud market signifies that “outages, or different points that degrade the service of a cloud supplier, may have a cascading impression on the economic system or particular sectors.”
The CrowdStrike crash that affected thousands and thousands 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 referred to as Microsoft Entra ID — previously often known as Azure Energetic Listing — which helps authenticate customers logging in to cloud-based software program, a few of the folks mentioned.
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.
Corporations equivalent to Salesforce Inc.’s Slack and Zoom Communications Inc. have mentioned that Microsoft’s follow of making a gift of its Groups video-conferencing software program free of charge in a bundle with standard software program merchandise like Phrase and Excel is anticompetitive and makes it more durable for them to compete.
