- The CMA has nine months to determine whether Microsoft has strategic market status
- The company has 15 million commercial users in the UK, including in the public sector.
- Software mixing and integration of third-party tools are at the heart of the investigation
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into Microsoft’s business software to determine whether the US tech giant has excessive market power in the country.
Competition, consumer choice, innovation and pricing are all ready to be analyzed in the Strategic Market State (SMS) survey.
The UK investigation comes at an important time, with Microsoft now having more than 15 million business users across the UK, including in public sector organisations.
CMA SMS investigation into Microsoft reaches full speed
Software is undergoing a major shift as co-pilots and AI assistants become integrated and many companies even move toward fully autonomous agent workflows. With this, the CMA wants to ensure that customers can still mix and match software from different vendors and integrate third-party AI into Microsoft’s suite to avoid exclusivity and vendor lock-in.
Regulators have raised concerns about how Microsoft bundles its products as well as interoperability restrictions that make it difficult, costly or impossible to integrate third-party tools and software.
“Our aim is to understand how these markets are developing, Microsoft’s position within them and to consider what targeted actions, if any, might be needed to ensure UK organizations can benefit from choice, innovation and competitive pricing,” explained Sarah Cardell, CEO of CMA.
If Microsoft is deemed to have too much control over the market, the CMA could impose interoperability requirements, bundle restrictions and other measures.
As for next steps, the CMA plans to work with competing software companies, challenger companies, corporate clients and public sector organizations to get a clearer picture of the market.
“We are committed to working quickly and constructively with the CMA to facilitate its review of the enterprise software market,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
The CMA says its nine-month investigation will be “proportionate and transparent” and that a final decision on whether to designate Microsoft as SMS will be made by February 2027.
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