Google tried to pay EU cloud firms $500 million to continue antitrust case against Microsoft

Google offered over $500 million to a group of European cloud companies to keep their antitrust complaint against Microsoft going, according to Bloomberg. The attempt didn’t work, and the group settled with Microsoft.

The situation began when the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), a non-profit trade organization, accused Microsoft of making it too hard for businesses to switch cloud providers because its software was tied to its Azure cloud service. CISPE started negotiating with Microsoft to get better access to its technologies and to drop the complaint.

During these talks, Google, which competes with Microsoft, allegedly offered CISPE $512 million to continue the complaint. Confidential documents reviewed by Bloomberg indicate Google’s offer included $495 million (€455 million) in cloud technology software licenses over five years and the remaining amount in cash and a long-term partnership proposal. Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is part of CISPE, also contributed to Google’s offer.

Google's offer was only good if CISPE kept its complaint against Microsoft. Instead, CISPE made a deal with Microsoft to use improved Azure features and offer Microsoft products on their local cloud services. Microsoft also agreed to pay CISPE around $11 million.