British watchdog seeks tougher terms around Microsoft's dominance of business software

The UK's competition watchdog wants to designate Microsoft with strategic market status (SMS) in business software, allowing the regulator it to intervene to level the playing field, and says it is considering other areas for investigation. Regulators around the world are watching to see what the UK decides in this case, with bodies such as the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Commission mulling similar actions. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is opening a consultation on whether to tag the Redmond software giant with strategic market status in respect of its portfolio of business software applications. This follows an investigation the regulator started back in May into Microsoft’s software portfolio including Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and Teams, plus its security, server and operating systems. The watchdog is also probing whether Microsoft enjoys a position of “substantial and entrenched market power” through the suite of software that could be seen as stifling competition and harming buyer choice. …