the examination of its software licensing and cloud computing business.
It seems that the probe was initially approved by Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission Chair in order to be solved before the soon departure in January. But during the U.S. presidential election shortly after, this situation remained unsolved due to the fact that the Republicans in the U.S. have a softer approach towards the business.
In this U.S. antitrust investigation, the FTC wants to examine the fact that the giant Microsoft seems to have abused its market power in productivity software and enforced various severe licensing terms in order to stop customers move their information and data from the Azure Cloud service to other rivals in the industry.
But, according to the same source, the Federal Trade Commission also wants to include in the Microsoft antitrust investigation the company's practices in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence technology.
It’s important to mention that other rivals in the industry have complained about Microsoft’s practices that are keeping customers blocked in the Azure Cloud Service. For these concerns, the FTC investigated the cloud computing industry early last year.
Also, the lobbying groups that represent various online companies such as Amazon and Google, and are competing with Microsoft cloud computing, have recently been concerned about the the artificial intelligence technology included in the Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook platforms.
"Given that Microsoft is the world's largest software company, dominating in productivity and operating systems software, the scale and consequences of its licensing decisions are extraordinary,", the NetChoice group stated.
Even more so, the FTC has requested various detailed data and information about all Microsoft practices and AI integrations in order to close the U.S. antitrust investigation. Currently, the agency is examining Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Inflection AI with about $650 million.
We don’t know yet when the Federal Trade Commission will end this Microsoft antitrust investigation. But stay tuned for more updates!
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