Earlier this year, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisional ruling concluded that the cloud storage market, as it stands, is fundamentally anti-competitive. At the heart of this issue lies the dominance of the three hyperscalers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. The three tech giants have maintained a firm hold over the industry for years, leveraging their market power to impose hefty data access fees and locking in customers.
Most recently, AWS escalated the dispute by accusing Microsoft of employing anti-competitive tactics. Google quickly threw its weight behind AWS’s claims, citing instances where customers had opted for Microsoft Azure not out of preference, but because of restrictive licensing conditions.
