Microsoft announced on Monday that it will implement changes in cloud computing starting October 1. When the company announced the changes in May, it didn’t say when the changes would take effect. However, after several complaints to EU antitrust regulators about the US software company, Microsoft has finally revealed changes to licensing agreements and other changes since October 1. The revised offerings will allow customers to use their licenses on any European cloud provider. services for their own data centers.
In a blog post on Monday, Microsoft announced that “major revisions and updates to our outsourcing and hosting terms will be implemented that will benefit partners and customers globally.”
The company also revealed that it will introduce a new flexible virtualization benefit that will help increase choice for customers when outsourcing. Microsoft will allow customers with Software Assurance or subscription licenses to use its licensed software to build or install solutions and run them on any vendor’s infrastructure. However, rivals Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, Alibaba and Microsoft’s own cloud services will be excluded from the bids.
As noted above, Microsoft president Brad Smith first announced these changes in May, without revealing any plans for when the changes would go into effect.
Microsoft was earlier fined 1.6 billion Euros (roughly Rs. 12,740 crores) by the European Commission for various violations.