Competition: Microsoft is placed under increased surveillance by the German regulator
The German competition policeman has placed Microsoft under enhanced surveillance, after other tech giants, which could lead to a ban on practices deemed anti-competitive.
The Federal Cartel Office, acting under a 2021 German law extending its powers against net heavyweights, has indicated to have brought proceedings against Microsoft in order to examine whether the company is of paramount importance for competition in the market. This paves the way for this authority to prohibit certain anti-competitive practices.
“With Windows and Office products, Microsoft traditionally has a very strong position in operating systems and office software”commented the president of the organization, Andreas Mundt.
Microsoft has used this base to expand its product line, evidenced by the rise of the Azure cloud platform and the online storage service OneDrive, often connected to other Microsoft applications, as well as the success of Teams, videoconferencing and joint work software.
In addition, Microsoft is active in other areas such as video games with the Xbox, networks between professionals with LinkedIn or Internet searches with the Bing search engine. It has recently caught the eye with the integration of artificial intelligence applications.
All provide “good reasons to consider whether Microsoft is of primary importance” in various markets, “which would make it possible to identify and prohibit any anti-competitive behavior at an early stage if necessary”concludes Andreas Mundt.
The German competition policeman has already placed Alphabet (parent company of Google) and Meta (parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp), as well as Amazon under increased surveillance.
