Google accuses Microsoft of unfair practices in Azure cloud unit
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian speaks at the Google Cloud Next event in San Francisco, April 9, 2019.
Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Google, which has spent years defending itself against claims of monopolistic behavior across the U.S. and Europe, is going public with its own complaint of anti-competitive practices by longtime rival Microsoft.
In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday, Google alleged Microsoft uses unfair licensing terms to “lock in clients” to exert control over the cloud-computing market.
The letter was sent in response to a broad FTC request for comment on potential anti-competitive acts in the cloud industry. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment further.
Google singled out Microsoft in the complaint, arguing that through its dominant Windows Server and Microsoft Offices products, the company can make it difficult for its massive roster of clients to use anything but its Azure cloud infrastructure offering. Google described Microsoft’s licensing restrictions as a “complex web” that prevents businesses from diversifying their enterprise software vendors.
Google also said such control represents a significant national security and cybersecurity risk. It highlighted successive cyberattacks involving Microsoft products, including the SolarWinds breach. Microsoft and Google both have active cybersecurity practices that respond to and research cyber threats.
Google is no stranger to antitrust concerns. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice filed its second antitrust lawsuit against Google in just over two years, targeting its advertising business.
The department’s earlier lawsuit, filed in October 2020 under the Trump administration, accused Google of using monopoly power to cut off competition for internet search through exclusionary agreements. That case is expected to go to trial in September.
Google also faces three other antitrust lawsuits from large groups of state attorneys general, including one focused on its advertising business led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
In its FTC letter, Microsoft also alleged Oracle’s practices are harmful to customers.
“With overly complex agreements that seek to lock in clients to their ecosystems,” Google said, companies such as Microsoft and Oracle “are not only forcing customers toward a monolithic cloud model but also limiting choice, increasing costs for customers, and disrupting growing and thriving digital ecosystems in the U.S. and around the world.”
In the 1990s, Microsoft was involved in one of the most notorious antitrust cases in U.S. history. The company was accused of using its dominance in desktop software to push consumers to its internet browser, killing off competition from upstarts such as Netscape. The government won the case, ultimately forcing Microsoft to allow PC makers to use other companies’ browsers.
Oracle CEO Clay Magouyrk appears on a media tour of the Stargate AI data center in Abilene, Texas, on Sept. 23, 2025.
Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oracle on Friday pushed back against a report that said the company will complete data centers for OpenAI, one of its major customers, in 2028, rather than 2027.
The delay is due to a shortage of labor and materials, according to the Friday report from Bloomberg, which cited unnamed people. Oracle shares fell to a session low of $185.98, down 6.5% from Thursday’s close.
“Site selection and delivery timelines were established in close coordination with OpenAI following execution of the agreement and were jointly agreed,” an Oracle spokesperson said in an email to CNBC. “There have been no delays to any sites required to meet our contractual commitments, and all milestones remain on track.”
The Oracle spokesperson did not specify a timeline for turning on cloud computing infrastructure for OpenAI. In September, OpenAI said it had a partnership with Oracle worth more than $300 billion over the next five years.
“We have a good relationship with OpenAI,” Clay Magouyrk, one of Oracle’s two newly appointed CEOs, said at an October analyst meeting.
Doing business with OpenAI is relatively new to 48-year-old Oracle. Historically, Oracle grew through sales of its database software and business applications. Its cloud infrastructure business now contributes over one-fourth of revenue, although Oracle remains a smaller hyperscaler than Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
OpenAI has also made commitments to other companies as it looks to meet expected capacity needs.
In September, Nvidia said it had signed a letter of intent with OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia equipment for the San Francisco artificial intelligence startup. The first phase of that project is expected in the second half of 2026.
Nvidia and OpenAI said in a September statement that they “look forward to finalizing the details of this new phase of strategic partnership in the coming weeks.”
But no announcement has come yet.
In a November filing, Nvidia said “there is no assurance that we will enter into definitive agreements with respect to the OpenAI opportunity.”
OpenAI has historically relied on Nvidia graphics processing units to operate ChatGPT and other products, and now it’s also looking at designing custom chips in a collaboration with Broadcom.
On Thursday, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan laid out a timeline for the OpenAI work, which was announced in October. Broadcom and OpenAI said they had signed a term sheet.
“It’s more like 2027, 2028, 2029, 10 gigawatts, that was the OpenAI discussion,” Tan said on Broadcom’s earnings call. “And that’s, I call it, an agreement, an alignment of where we’re headed with respect to a very respected and valued customer, OpenAI. But we do not expect much in 2026.”
OpenAI declined to comment.
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