Thought Leadership
Microsoft has become a new member of CISPE (Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers of Europe) – the very association that recently took legal action against the company’s licensing practices. However, the decision to admit the 39th member was not well received everywhere.
AWS voted against accession
As a high-ranking CISPE spokesperson confirmed to TheRegister, Amazon Web Services (AWS) voted against Microsoft’s admission, but was outvoted by the board. Microsoft will join the association as a non-voting member. In view of its annual turnover of 105 billion US dollars in the cloud segment alone (financial year 2024), this restriction should reassure other members.
Previous history characterized by conflicts
The relationship between Microsoft and CISPE has been tense to date. The association had accused the group of charging up to five times higher fees for certain software licenses in third-party clouds. In November 2022, CISPE therefore filed a complaint with the EU Commission.
The conflict was resolved by a confidential settlement. Insiders report that Microsoft agreed to a payment of up to 30 million euros. The company also agreed to provide an improved version of Azure Local (formerly Azure HCI Stack) and to suspend all license audits for the next two years.
Critical voices on the recording – Google came away empty-handed
The development has not met with universal approval. “What value can CISPE be for European cloud providers? It seems like a stooge for Microsoft now.,” TheRegister quotes an insider. Others expressed concern about the future of the closed settlement.
However, the CISPE spokesperson emphasizes: “It was always part of the discussions that at some point Microsoft might want to join. If anything, it strengthens our hand.”
It is worth noting that Google failed in a similar attempt to join last year, despite being offered financial incentives. The company then joined the Open Cloud Coalition and recently filed its first complaint against Microsoft with the EU Commission.
What does CISPE do?
CISPE was founded in 2016 to represent the interests of European cloud infrastructure providers. Based in Brussels, the association now represents the interests of 39 cloud providers vis-à-vis EU institutions and national governments. Its core tasks include developing rules of conduct for cloud services, promoting data protection in accordance with GDPR standards and supporting Europe’s digital sovereignty.
CISPE is particularly committed to fair competitive conditions in the cloud market and has repeatedly taken legal action against anti-competitive practices by large tech groups. The association works closely with EU bodies and played a key role in the development of the Data Act and the Cloud Switching Framework. The European cloud market is currently over 70 percent dominated by AWS, Microsoft and Google. CISPE sees its main task as promoting data protection and control for cloud users in Europe and at the same time strengthening the competitiveness of European providers.
