Microsoft offers EU cloud providers fresh commercial terms, staves off risk of litigation

Exclusive Microsoft has tabled a fresh set of commercial terms for an association of cloud providers in Europe that earlier filed a complaint with antitrust authorities in the trading bloc over allegations of anti-competitive licensing practices.

The Cloud Infrastructure Service Providers of Europe, aka CISPE, is a trade body that acts on behalf of 30 plus independent traders in the region, and which also counts AWS – and latterly Microsoft – among its membership. It first documented its frustration with the Windows-maker's market moves in November 2022.

Its complaint centered on Microsoft allegedly charging service providers more to run its software – including Windows Server, Exchange, and SharePoint – on clouds outside of Azure, although other issues were also raised over the terms Microsoft offers.

A threat of legal action was quelled a year ago this week on the understanding that Microsoft would build and promote a new version of Azure Local, formally ...