Microsoft is in talks with Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) to settle the trade body’s complaint about its cloud software licensing practices in the European Union (EU).
“Today, CISPE confirms that it has opened discussions with Microsoft aimed at resolving ongoing issues related to unfair software licensing for cloud infrastructure providers and their customers in Europe,” the trade body said in a statement, adding that both parties are exploring potential remedies.
The trade body, which consists of 26 small cloud providers in EU member countries and Amazon Web Services, had filed a complaint with the EU’s antitrust authority, the European Commission, in November 2022 claiming that Microsoft’s new cloud software licensing terms published in October that year were bad for the EU’s cloud ecosystem.
It is concerned that they favor Microsoft’s own Azure service, and could adversely affect competition in cloud services including desktop virtualization and application hosting, limiting CIOs’ options for where they run certain workloads.
