UK cloud market faces further scrutiny as CMA flags switching barriers at AWS, Microsoft
Britain's cloud infrastructure market remains under regulatory scrutiny as competition concerns persist around how easily customers can move workloads between providers. The Competition and Markets Authority says Amazon Web Services and Microsoft can do more to reduce barriers to switching and to support the use of multiple cloud services in the UK.
Highlights
- The UK Competition and Markets Authority said AWS and Microsoft must take further steps to address barriers limiting switching and multi-cloud adoption.
- The CMA kept open the possibility of launching a full strategic market status investigation into the UK cloud services sector amid ongoing concerns.
- Continued regulatory scrutiny could increase pressure on AWS and Microsoft, potentially leading to stronger oversight and new requirements in the UK cloud market.
Regulator keeps market intervention option open
As reported by Reuters, the Competition and Markets Authority said on Friday that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft can take further steps to address remaining obstacles that limit switching between cloud providers and the use of multi-cloud services.The watchdog says those barriers continue to affect customer choice in the UK market, where businesses may want to spread computing workloads across different providers rather than depend on a single platform.
The CMA also says it will keep under review the possibility of opening a full strategic market status investigation into the sector.
Implications for UK cloud competition
The statement keeps pressure on two of the largest cloud service providers as regulators examine whether technical and commercial constraints are making it harder for customers to change suppliers or combine services from multiple vendors.For UK businesses, easier switching and broader multi-cloud adoption could improve negotiating power, expand service options and lower dependence on any one provider, while a deeper CMA probe would raise the prospect of stronger regulatory oversight for the cloud sector.
In our earlier report on the Bank of England urging banks to build “bare metal” recovery capabilities, we explained how regulators want lenders to be able to restore critical services even if primary systems are compromised by increasingly complex, AI-enabled cyber attacks. The piece highlighted a shift from relying mainly on preventive defences to end-to-end operational resilience planning, reflecting broader concerns about systemic risks in core financial and technology infrastructure.
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