The cold war between Google and Microsoft ‘heated up’ (Video)

A long-standing feud between Google (GOOG, Google) and Microsoft (MSFT) emerges into the public eye once again.

Google’s latest move comes in a complaint filed with the European Commission on Wednesday, accusing Microsoft of violating the European Union’s antitrust law.

Google illegally leveraged Microsoft’s dominant enterprise server software, it said in a document provided to Yahoo Finance.Windows ServerLicenses that force customers to depend on Microsoft for cloud computing.

Microsoft predicted that Google would “fail” in this case and said it had already addressed similar concerns raised by European cloud providers.

“Having failed to persuade European companies, we expect Google to similarly fail to persuade the European Commission,” a Microsoft spokesman said.

Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the technology policy advocacy group, says the new dispute shows “this is now a cold war heating up.” Progress Roomhe told Yahoo Finance.

‘Crooked’

The two tech giants have spent the last two decades battling for supremacy in various technologies. online search and cloud computing markets operating systems, game software, online advertising – and now artificial intelligenceor AI.

The fight started a decade after Microsoft reached an agreement. landmark antitrust case It was sued by the US Department of Justice for allegedly outselling its competitors by making its browser the default on the free and dominant Windows operating system.

2002 residential It opened the door to broader competition in the Internet browser software market and It created an opportunity for Google, a startup later founded by Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page to begin a period of rapid growth in the 2000s.

Microsoft defended its recreated territory in a series of videos first published in 2011; In these videos, Microsoft distorted Google with parodies that suggested Google’s rival Gmail service, Chrome browser, and accompanying software lacked quality and privacy.

A video titled “Gmail Man” He questioned Google’s ethics, accusing it of mining every word in Gmail customers’ private emails in order to target them with ads.

In other videos titled “Crooked” And “lighting on google” — a spoof related to the popular 1980s television series “Moonlighting” — questioned whether consumers should trust Google with their private information.

Companies in 2016 entered into a ceasefire As two new CEOs take over – Google’s Sundar Pichai and Microsoft’s Satya Nadella – a deal has been struck that will end regulatory complaints against each other worldwide.

Agreement ended In 2021, Microsoft complained that Google was using unfair tactics to compete in online search and advertising as regulators in the US and EU increased pressure on both companies.

‘You brush your teeth and search on Google’

Last year, things got really uncomfortable during a high-profile antitrust case that pitted Google against the US Department of Justice; It’s a lawsuit that alleges that Google has illegally monopolized the online search engine market and carries echoes of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Microsoft in the 1990s.

The most important witness who testified against Google was Nadella, who did not hesitate to take shots at his opponent on the stand.

“You wake up in the morning, you brush your teeth and you search on Google,” Nadella said, emphasizing Google’s overwhelming dominance in the search engine market.

Nadella said of Microsoft’s own search engine, Bing: failed to attract attention because Google had negotiated for Google Search to have the default placement in browsers, desktop computers, and mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhones and iPads and Android-based smartphones made by Samsung and others.

Nadella went on to describe the imbalance as a “vicious circle” that he worried would intensify with the development of artificial intelligence.

Google lost the case in a judge’s ruling that called its search business an illegal monopoly. The solution is currently awaiting a resolution phase that could lead to the disintegration of the Google empire.

Microsoft certainly has a lot to gain from Google’s defeat, Kovacevich said.

“They were probably the main instigators of the US Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google,” Kovacevich said. “And a guilty verdict against Google will likely benefit Microsoft’s Bing for everyone.”

Microsoft is taking a similar approach on another issue Antitrust lawsuit against Google This is still in its initial testing phase. There it is argued that Google’s control over online advertising technologies has harmed the success of the Bing browser.

New fight before the EU

It is unknown whether the EU will take responsibility for Google’s latest attack on Microsoft’s cloud computing rules.

Google argues that Microsoft is imposing a 400% price increase on customers to switch their Windows Server licenses to a rival cloud service, while customers who choose Microsoft’s cloud services Azure will be able to switch “at essentially no cost.”

While Google defends this, the same kind of “packaging” or “connecting“Arguments used in the lawsuit filed against Microsoft by the Department of Justice in 1998.

At the time, US prosecutors alleged that Microsoft illegally monopolized the market for personal computer operating systems by using its Windows operating system to give away its browser, Internet Explorer, for free.

This move bundled the browser with Windows, eventually giving rise to the rival browser Netscape Explorer out of work

Microsoft eventually had to open Windows to third-party software; This paved the way for companies, including Google, to “work together” using Microsoft-powered computers or run their browsers and search software.

Now, in the cloud computing market, Google argues that Microsoft is using its “dominance in a single market to prevent competition in a separate, unrelated market,” according to the document shared with Yahoo Finance.

Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on X @alexiskweed.

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