CMA Targeting the Cloud Providers

Very interesting to see the current thoughts and progress from the CMA in their investigation into potential market abuse by the public cloud providers.

https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/cloud-services-market-investigation#progress-update

They are looking closely at the claims that the giant providers like AWS, Microsoft and Google are using their scale to squash competition and the potential damage this might be causing.

One of the fascinating angles being explored (called "Theory of Harm") is whether Committed spend discounts harm competition by reducing the ability and incentive of rival suppliers to compete for each other’s existing customers and/or leading to the weakening or marginalisation of some suppliers.

Personally we think the committed spend discounts are an issue that needs sorting, but also that the excessive "free credits" are more damaging and should be included. Over the last few years we have experienced so many organisations being sucked in by free credits and now finding themselves totally locked in and unable to easily move between providers.