cloud licensing

Japan’s competition watchdog executed an on‑site inspection of Microsoft’s Tokyo offices this week as part of a probe into whether the software giant steered customers toward its own Azure cloud through licensing and pricing practices — an inquiry that could reshape multicloud contracts, vendor...

Japan’s antitrust authority executed an on‑site inspection of Microsoft Japan on February 25, 2026, as investigators probe whether the software giant used its dominance in Windows and Microsoft 365 to steer customers toward Azure by imposing higher licensing fees and restrictive terms on rival...

Microsoft’s Tokyo offices were inspected by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission this week, and the probe—combined with renewed investor scrutiny of AI infrastructure spending and accounting—has put a fresh spotlight on how Azure, in-house silicon, and aggressive capital deployment are reshaping...

Japan’s competition watchdog carried out an on‑site inspection of Microsoft’s Tokyo offices on February 25, 2026, opening a formal probe into whether the software giant used licensing, pricing, or sales practices tied to Microsoft Azure to discourage—or effectively penalize—Japanese businesses...

Japan’s competition watchdog executed an on-site inspection of Microsoft Japan’s Tokyo offices on February 25, 2026, initiating a formal probe into whether the company’s local unit steered corporate customers toward Microsoft Azure by making Microsoft software harder or more expensive to run on...

Japan’s competition authority carried out an on‑site inspection of Microsoft Japan’s Tokyo offices on Feb. 25, 2026, as part of an antitrust probe into whether the company’s cloud‑related licensing and technical practices tied to Microsoft Azure have discouraged customers from using rival cloud...

Japan’s competition enforcers have executed an on-site inspection of Microsoft’s Japanese offices after local media and international reporting said the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) is investigating whether Microsoft improperly limited customers’ ability to run Microsoft software on rival...

The cloud licensing market in 2026 has morphed from a transactional reseller economy into a strategic services landscape where the right partner can save millions, accelerate AI projects, and reduce vendor lock‑in risk — this feature examines the ten cloud licensing partners that dominate the...

Microsoft now faces a landmark, potentially industry‑reshaping legal fight in the United Kingdom: a collective action accusing the company of using Windows Server licensing rules to penalize customers who run workloads on rival clouds — an approach that, claimants say, has the effect of steering...

Microsoft’s headline AI moves on December 11–12—rolling OpenAI’s GPT‑5.2 into Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio, announcing a major set of partnerships with Indian IT giants, and reaffirming a multi‑billion dollar infrastructure commitment in India—arrived on the same trading day that a...

Microsoft has begun rolling OpenAI’s GPT‑5.2 into Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Studio, placing a new two‑mode model family—GPT‑5.2 Instant for fast day‑to‑day writing and translation, and GPT‑5.2 Thinking for deeper reasoning and planning—directly into the flow of office work and agent...

Microsoft returned to a London antitrust tribunal this week to argue that a proposed collective action seeking up to £2.1 billion over Windows Server licensing should be blocked at the gate because the claimants — led by competition lawyer Maria Luisa Stasi — have not identified a viable legal...

Microsoft told a UK judge that a planned mass lawsuit over its cloud licensing is defective because the claim’s methodology cannot reliably identify who suffered loss or by how much, a procedural attack that — if successful — would block a high‑stakes Collective Proceedings Order and leave...

Microsoft is defending itself against a sweeping £2.1 billion class claim in the UK that accuses the company of deliberately making it more expensive and operationally awkward for thousands of British businesses to run Windows Server on rival cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services (AWS)...

Microsoft is back in the dock over cloud licensing, and this time the dispute sits at the intersection of antitrust law, enterprise procurement strategy, and the future shape of the cloud market itself — a dispute that could change how UK organisations buy and run Windows Server workloads...

The UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal has begun a pivotal review of whether a collective £2.1 billion lawsuit alleging discriminatory cloud-licensing and pricing by Microsoft should be certified and allowed to proceed to a full trial, a legal moment with potentially far-reaching consequences for...

Microsoft now faces the prospect of a landmark UK collective action that accuses the company of a deliberate, coherent abusive strategy to penalise businesses that run Windows Server on rival clouds — an allegation that, if allowed to proceed, could reshape enterprise licensing, cloud...

Microsoft is fighting to prevent a proposed multi‑billion‑pound collective suit over Windows Server licensing from becoming a full, jury‑style testing ground for how software giants price and tie their products to cloud infrastructure — a battle that could reshape cloud procurement, licensing...

Microsoft faced a fresh challenge in the UK on 11 December 2025 as a Competition Appeal Tribunal hearing considered whether a mass damages claim alleging abusive cloud-licensing practices should be certified — a case that accuses the company of deliberately imposing higher costs for running...

A new national survey shows AI chatbots have moved from novelty to routine in many U.S. teenagers’ lives: roughly two-thirds of teens report using chatbots and nearly three in ten say they use them every day. The finding arrives amid legal, regulatory, and industry shifts that make this moment...