Microsoft has joined the CISPE cloud alliance, which has been fighting it for years

Microsoft has become a new member of the CISPE association, which unites mainly small cloud providers in Europe. It is noteworthy that the European structure has previously repeatedly filed complaints against the IT giant in connection with anti-competitive practices in the field of software licensing, The Register reports. However, not everyone in CISPE is happy with the emergence of a new participant, and according to one of the experts, now small providers look like “a Microsoft puppet.”

The purpose of creating CISPE is to promote cloud services in Europe, which is today dominated by AWS, Microsoft and Google, which together own more than 70% of the cloud market. CISPE confirmed that Microsoft will become the 39th partner. There are no obstacles to this – the group includes representatives of cloud businesses in the region, including hyperscalers like AWS. The association says this is a step towards growth for CISPE and there are many areas where the goals of all organizations coincide. Among them, for example, is the automation of the implementation of a new European law that simplifies the transition from cloud to cloud.

CISPE’s ten-member board of directors voted in favor of Microsoft joining, although the decision was not unanimous. AWS was predictably opposed, which, in particular, does not agree with its rival’s practices in the field of using software in the clouds. Microsoft itself welcomed CISPE’s decision to accept the application to become a non-voting member and promised to focus on building a constructive partnership that can support European cloud service providers. Of course, Microsoft’s inability to vote was somewhat reassuring to other companies whose businesses are not comparable to the scale of Microsoft’s work.

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At one time, CISPE (and separately AWS) repeatedly criticized Microsoft’s software licensing practice, which implies many times higher fees for using some of the company’s software outside of Azure. In November 2022, CISPE filed a complaint with the European Commission, but after lengthy negotiations, Microsoft persuaded the majority of the structure’s members to enter into a settlement agreement with a possible payment of up to €30 million ($31 million), provision of an improved version of Azure Local (formerly Azure HCI Stack) and suspension Microsoft licensing audits for two years.

It is noteworthy that Google also tried to join CISPE and even offered multimillion-dollar sums and cloud credits in exchange, wanting to get a seat on the board of directors of the association and continue the fight with Microsoft in the legal field. This did not resonate with CISPE participants. Google later joined the Open Cloud Coalition (OCC), which Microsoft calls a “lobbying front” that calls for an end to “restrictive licensing” policies.

Previously, Microsoft’s sales tactics were called the “software tax.” Thus, CISPE commissioned a study that showed that the public sector and business in Europe annually overpays up to €1 billion (just over $1 billion) for running various types of Microsoft software in clouds outside of Azure. Since then, Google has already filed a complaint related to this problem with the European Commission.