Microsoft is reportedly looking to stave off an EU antitrust investigation by offering to change its cloud computing practices.

Numerous European cloud operators including Italian firm Aruba and the Danish Cloud Community industry association complained to the European Commission in 2022 about Microsoft’s cloud practices and its licensing deals.

According to sources cited by Reuters however, Microsoft has put forward a settlement building on changes to its licensing practices which were introduced last October by president Brad Smith. News of a deal was initially reported by Bloomberg, with the source saying that previous reports piling pressure on Microsoft pushed the firm to improve on its initial proposal.

Microsoft has been fined more than €1.6 billion by the European Commission over the past decade. The source said that the Commission will monitor the settlement.

No party has publicly commented on the proposal, save for trade group Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) which said it was not part of the settlement and would continue to pursue its complaint.

A spokesperson for the group, which counts cloud market leader Amazon amongst its numbers, said: "We've had an initial discussion with Microsoft, but have not seen anything that suggests changes that will ensure that all European customers have the chance to run the software they want in the cloud of their choice free of unfair licence terms or discriminatory pricing.”

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