BRUSSELS, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Alphabet unit

Google filed a complaint to the European Commission on Wednesday

against what it said were Microsoft's ( MSFT ) anti-competitive

practices to lock customers into Microsoft's ( MSFT ) cloud platform

Azure.

Google, whose biggest cloud computing rivals are Microsoft ( MSFT )

and Amazon Web Services, said Microsoft ( MSFT ) was exploiting its

dominant Windows Server operating system to prevent competition.

Google Cloud Vice President Amit Zavery told a briefing that

Microsoft ( MSFT ) made customers pay a 400% mark-up to keep running

Windows Server on rival cloud computing operators. This did not

apply if they used Azure. Users of rival cloud systems would

also get later and more limited security updates, Zavery said.

Google pointed to a 2023 study by cloud services

organisation CISPE which found that European businesses and

public sector bodies were paying up to 1 billion euros ($1.12

billion) per year on Microsoft ( MSFT ) licensing penalties.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) in July clinched a 20-million-euro deal to settle

an antitrust complaint about its cloud computing licensing

practices with CISPE, averting an EU investigation. However, the

settlement did not include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google

Cloud Platform and AliCloud, prompting criticism from the first

two companies.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) said it had settled amicably similar concerns

raised by European cloud providers, adding that Google had hoped

they would keep litigating.

"Having failed to persuade European companies, we expect

Google similarly will fail to persuade the European Commission,"

a Microsoft ( MSFT ) spokesperson said in a statement.

Google said Microsoft ( MSFT ) had locked customers into using

collaboration application Teams even when they preferred

alternatives and was using the same playbook for Azure.

"The time to act is now," Zavery said. "The cloud market

will get more and more restrictive if things don't happen now."

Google said that only regulatory action would end

Microsoft's ( MSFT ) "vendor lock" and level the playing field for

competitors.

"We are asking the European Commission to act now. We're

asking them to really look at this issue, help customers decide

and keep the choices going for them," Zavery said.

Google said Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Windows Server and various Microsoft ( MSFT )

products had a market share of over 70% in European businesses.

For years, Microsoft ( MSFT ) allowed its products to work on any

hardware, such as laptops, but placed restrictions in 2019 as it

entered the cloud business.

The cloud computing business is growing at around 20% per

year in the EU, with plenty of potential. A McKinsey study in

April showed that two-thirds of EU companies had less than half

of their workloads on the cloud.

($1 = 0.8943 euros)