Balanced Economy Project says still no sign of the CMA’s new powers in its response to big tech’s grip on UK Cloud

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decision to open an SMS designation investigation into Microsoft's business software licensing in cloud is a step in the right direction, but the delays in getting to this point show the CMA fails to recognise bigger picture.

There will be another nine months of investigation from May before any action can be taken. This is in addition to the three and a half years lost since Ofcom launched the study it then referred to the CMA for an in-depth review.

The CMA’s two-year investigation found that AWS and Microsoft control 70-80% of the UK's cloud computing market. Yet despite the growing risks of concentration, the CMA Board has shied away from meaningful action on the problems it has already identified. Neither AWS nor Microsoft Azure will face SMS investigations. Instead, both firms have offered voluntary commitments on interoperability and data portability fees. Yet, history tells us that Big Tech’s voluntary measures are usually overly general and difficult to enforce.

The European Commission has taken a different view. In November 2025 it opened investigations into whether both AWS and Microsoft Azure should be designated as gatekeepers under the DMA, going after both hyperscalers on interoperability, data access and bundling. There is a risk that the CMA’s softly-softly approach hands AWS and Microsoft a useful argument in their proceedings: that a major competition authority has concluded that voluntary commitments are good enough

Consumers and the UK's digital economy will have to continue to wait while two dominant providers embed themselves deeper, continue to wait for the day when the CMA will unlock it's new digital powers to tackle competition problems in Microsoft's business software ecosystem, and continue to wait for the voluntary approach to deliver anything real for AWS and Azure.

It has the feel of pass the parcel, with nobody wanting the music to stop.

We need your help to hold powerful corporations to account and keep fighting to constrain corporate power. Donate to Balanced Economy Project todayand help us build a fairer economy together.