A decades-long struggle for dominance between two tech titans, Google and Microsoft, has erupted into a public spat once again. The latest salvo comes from Google, which has lodged a formal complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of violating EU antitrust laws. At the heart of the dispute is Microsoft’s alleged abuse of its market-leading position in enterprise server software to strong-arm customers into choosing its cloud computing services over rival offerings.
Microsoft has dismissed Google’s claims, predicting that the search giant will fail to persuade EU regulators just as it did with European cloud providers. The dispute marks a new front in a long-standing “cold war” between the two companies, which have been vying for supremacy in areas ranging from online search and cloud computing to operating systems, gaming software, and artificial intelligence.
The rivalry dates back to the early 2000s, when Microsoft settled a landmark antitrust case with the US Justice Department over its bundling of Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system. The settlement paved the way for Google’s rapid rise to prominence, but Microsoft has continued to defend its turf through a series of public jabs at Google’s business practices.
In 2011, Microsoft released a series of parody videos questioning Google’s commitment to user privacy and suggesting that its services were inferior to Microsoft’s own offerings. The feud died down in 2016, when the companies agreed to end regulatory complaints against each other globally. However, the truce was short-lived, and the companies have since resumed their battle for dominance.
Last year, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella testified against Google in a high-profile antitrust trial, accusing the search giant of illegally monopolizing the online search engine market. Google ultimately lost the case, and the outcome could have significant implications for Microsoft’s own search engine, Bing.
The latest dispute centers on Microsoft’s cloud computing practices, with Google alleging that the company is imposing exorbitant fees on customers who want to migrate their Windows Server licenses to rival cloud services. Google claims that Microsoft is using its dominance in the enterprise server software market to stifle competition in the cloud computing space. The EU has yet to indicate whether it will take up Google’s complaint, but the outcome could have far-reaching implications for the tech industry as a whole.
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