Nextcloud files complaint in Germany about dominant market position of Microsoft

Nextcloud has submitted a request to the German competition authority to investigate Microsoft. The German maker of open source cloud software accuses Microsoft of abusing a dominant market position.

According to Nextcloud, Microsoft makes it difficult for other parties to compete because of the deep integration of various services with Microsoft Office and Windows. This could lead to abuse of its dominant position. Nextcloud therefore requests the Bundeskartellamt to investigate Microsoft.

“Microsoft is abusing its Windows monopoly to push its own cloud services into the market,” Nextcloud founder Frank Karlitschek told Der Spiegel. The company gives Teams, OneDrive and Bing as examples. Microsoft is said to have created a “unique digital ecosystem in several strategically important markets in the digital sector,” according to the software company from Stuttgart.

Nextcloud is a fork of ownCloud and offers an open source alternative to the cloud services of the big tech companies. The software can be run both on location and via data centers and the functionality can be expanded via plug-ins. In 2018, the German government announced that it would base its Bundescloud Box service for 300,000 government employees on Nextcloud.

Last year, Nextcloud renamed its service to Nextcloud Hub and the company merged multiple functions. For example, a word processor for collaborations was integrated and so-called Workspaces were added, with which users can manage various projects via notes and to-do lists. The chat and calendar functions were also incorporated in the Hub.