FTC Opens Microsoft Antitrust Investigation
The FTC has launched an antitrust investigation into Microsoft, accordingtomultiplereports that corroborate earlier reporting by the Financial Times.
The agency is said to be looking into whether Microsoft violated antitrust law in multiple segments of its business, including its public cloud, AI, and cybersecurity product lines. Of particular interest to the FTC is the way Microsoft bundles its cloud products with its office and security tools, says The New York Times.
Via Dare Obasanjo:
Being “better together” has been Microsoft’s strategy in the enterprise forever and it’s escaped scrutiny mainly because consumer big tech companies like Amazon, Google & Meta took the regulatory spotlight.
Obviously, the FTC’s concerns with Microsoft’s business practices stretch well beyond bundling Teams. According to this Bloomberg report, the Commission is interested in cloud and identity tying, too. On the one hand, it is enormously useful to businesses to have a suite of products with a single point of management and shared credentials. On the other hand, it is a monolithic system that is a non-starter for potential competitors.
The government is understandably worried about the security and stability risks of global dependence on Microsoft, too, but this is odd:
The CrowdStrike crash that affected millions of devices operating on Microsoft Windows systems earlier this year was itself a testament to the widespread use of the company’s products and how it directly affects the global economy.
Previously:
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Utterly pointless it'll be dropped as soon as Trump's FTC people get confirmed.
