The tech world is once again caught in the vortex of a tense conflict between two titans - Microsoft and Google. This dispute, which has roots going back two decades, has now turned its focus to cloud computing, a key segment with huge growth potential. Microsoft this week openly accused Google of "covert campaigns" aimed at discrediting its cloud services. These accusations have revived old wounds and added fuel to the fire of rivalry between the two tech giants.

The conflict gained momentum when Microsoft $MSFT's attorney , Rima Alaily, said in a blog post on Monday that Google $GOOG is deliberately funding and coordinating campaigns aimed at damaging Microsoft's reputation with regulators and the public. According to Alaily, Google is a key player in the recently formed Open Cloud Coalition, a group of European cloud companies that aims to open up the cloud computing market. The coalition presents itself on its website as an advocate for a fair and open cloud ecosystem, with Google saying its membership is intended to raise the profile of the problems it believes Microsoft is causing.

Microsoft, however, sees the situation differently. It claims that Google is orchestrating these 'shadow campaigns' to undermine its cloud infrastructure while gaining an advantage with global regulators. At the heart of the conflict is Microsoft's cloud licensing agreements, which Google has complained to the European Commission about, calling them anti-competitive practices. Google claims that Microsoft is forcing its customers to remain exclusively in its ecosystem due to the licensing termsthat don't allow easy migration to alternative cloud providers.

Microsoft, however, denies these accusations. According to Alaila, the licensing agreements are designed to protect their intellectual property and represent perfectly legitimate business practices that should not be subject to regulation. Alaily likens cloud licensing fees to the fees paid by streaming services such as Netflix for the right to view content, and argues that similar rules should prevail in the software industry.

But this dispute is not just about the cloud. Google and Microsoft are clashing on multiple fronts - from search and advertising to operating systems and now artificial intelligence. The rivalry between the two stems from the turn of the millennium, when Microsoft became the target of an antitrust lawsuit for abusing the dominant position of its Windows operating system. This situation subsequently opened the door for the rapid rise of Google, then a small company led by Stanford students.

Relations between the two giants became strained again in 2021, when a non-aggression agreement ended and the regulation of both companies came under scrutiny in the US and the EU. Microsoft accused Google of using unfair tactics in the online advertising and search segments, allegedly making it harder for competitors to enter the market. Google, meanwhile, became the focus of one of the largest antitrust lawsuits in history, with the US Department of Justice accusing it of monopolising the search market.

Microsoft is strengthening its position in the cloud market with its Azure product and gaining market share, while Google has seen rapid growth in its cloud revenues, which reached $11.4 billion in the third quarter. Google also reports that demand for its services is growing thanks to advances in artificial intelligence.

The clash between these two tech titans not only reflects the strategic importance of cloud computing, but also suggests that the future battle for customers will become increasingly intense. Both companies now face challenges that will shape not only their business models, but the entire technology market for the next decade. At stake is not only their share of the lucrative cloud market, but also the broader issue of regulation and fairness in a technology sector where both companies are trying to set their own standards.

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Source: Yahoo, Investing, CNN.