The coalition has denounced that Microsoft “aggressively presses the consumers so that they register and give their data”.

A coalition of European Union software and cloud companies has joined a complaint filed by Nextcloud against Microsoft in the European Commission for considering that the integration of applications such as OneDrive and Teams in Windows operating systems is anti-competitive for independent developers.

In recent years, tech giants such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have increased their software as a service (SaaS) market share to 66 percent in Europe, while local providers range from 26 and 16 percent.

The coalition has denounced that Microsoft integrates services such as OneDrive and Teams in its Windows operating system and thereby “aggressively pressures consumers to register and hand over their data.”

This practice, called “self-preference”, limits consumer choice and creates a barrier for other companies that offer competing services, especially local companies with specialized products, as the signatories of the complaint have denounced.

This is stated in a statement by the German software company Nextcloud, whose complaint against Microsoft was presented to the European Commission. The statement has been supported by 29 European companies and organizations in the sector.

The situation with Microsoft 365 applications on Windows has been compared to the integration of Internet Explorer in this operating system in the early 2000s, which negatively affected the development of other browsers and for which Microsoft was already fined in the European Union with 1,670 million euros until 2009.

“This kind of behavior is bad for the consumer, for the market, and, of course, for local businesses in the EU,” said Frank Karlitschek, CEO and founder of Nextcloud GmbH.

“Together with the other members of the coalition, we are calling on the antitrust authorities in Europe to impose a level playing field, giving customers a free choice and a fair opportunity for competition,” added Karlitschek.