Rima Alaily, Microsoft's Deputy General Counsel, recently published a 1,500-word blog post criticizing Google's tactics against Microsoft. Alaily highlighted several instances where Google attempted to discredit Microsoft with competition authorities and policymakers and mislead the public.
Despite Google's offer to pay nearly $500 million, Microsoft and CISPE reached a deal to resolve their differences. To overcome this setback, Google is now creating the Open Cloud Coalition in the UK and EU to conduct its lobbying activities. Google has hired a lobbying and communications agency and is recruiting several small European cloud providers to join. This new organization will be directed and largely funded by Google to attack Microsoft's cloud computing business in the UK and EU. The recruitment document for the Open Cloud Coalition omits any mention of Google's involvement and the organization's actual purpose.
Microsoft also mentioned that Google is continuing, directly and through proxies, to lobby competition authorities worldwide to impose restrictions on hyperscale cloud competitors, specifically Microsoft and AWS. With an operational capacity of 3,500 MW in data centers in 2023, more than any other cloud provider, Google is lobbying to be treated as a non-hyperscale or small cloud provider to avoid regulation.
Another revelation from Microsoft's blog post is that Google distributed a "fact sheet" in Washington DC early this year attempting to raise concerns about Microsoft's approach to the Chinese market. Microsoft claims that Google's document was misleading and filled with inaccuracies. Microsoft even raised this matter directly with Google leadership, but the issue remains unresolved.
Google is also directly and indirectly funding various industry commentators and academics to attack Microsoft and author "studies" that can be cited to discredit Microsoft in antitrust cases. Microsoft cited a recent example of this tactic employed by Google.
Microsoft highlighted that at least 24 antitrust investigations against Google are ongoing globally. Microsoft argues that Google should focus on addressing these concerns instead of spending resources attacking competitors.
The ongoing feud between these tech giants highlights the intense competition in the cloud computing market. It remains to be seen how Google will respond to these accusations and whether regulators will take action.
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