Microsoft President Met With U.S. Antitrust Committee Investigating Apple and Expressed Concerns Over App Store

[MacRumors]

Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are all set to participate in an antitrust hearing next Monday held by the United States House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee as part of an ongoing antitrust investigation on competition in digital markets.

Ahead of the hearing, the committee spoke with Microsoft president and chief legal officer Brad Smith, with The Information sharing details on the virtual meeting.

The committee wanted to talk with Smith so he could "provide Microsoft's perspective as a big tech company" formerly involved in antitrust regulation over Windows, but Smith also reportedly shared Microsoft's concerns with the way Apple operates the App Store.

Topics covered included Apple's arbitrary App Store approval processes, the 30 percent cut that Apple takes from app purchases and subscriptions, and requirements that developers use Apple's in-app purchase system.

At a Politico event in June, Smith expressed similar sentiments and said that it's time for regulators to take a look at app stores and the payment requirements.

"They impose requirements that increasingly say there is only one way to get on to our platform and that is to go through the gate that we ourselves have created. In some cases they create a very high price per toll - in some cases 30% of your revenue has to go to the toll keeper."

"The time has come - whether we are talking about D.C. or Brussels - for a much more focused conversation about the nature of app stores, the rules that are being put in place, the prices and the tolls that are being extracted and whether there is really a justification in antitrust law for everything that has been created."

Microsoft distributes multiple apps in Apple's App Store, and is required to pay Apple 15 to 30 percent for any customers who subscribe to its Office 365 service through Apple's platform.

Tim Cook and other tech CEOS will testify in the antitrust hearing on Monday, July 27 at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and a livestream will be available on YouTube.

Article Link: Microsoft President Met With U.S. Antitrust Committee Investigating Apple and Expressed Concerns Over App Store

 

[AtomicDusk]

Wah. Wah. Wah.

Microsoft crying because they don’t have a product that can compete with the iPhone is hilarious.

I get it, Microsoft is in a position of wanting to increase profits by reducing payments to vendors. I wonder how the App Store compares to the cost Microsoft would pay for Apple to carry office in the Apple stores, along with payment for wall placement.

Which was absolutely a thing, company reps (not MS) would come into my Apple store and make sure their products were on the shelves in the places they paid for.

 

[iBluetooth]

Windows, Word, Excel has MONOPOLY in all companies! But I guess it wasn't on the agenda.

 

[edgonzalez32]

Windows, Word, Excel has MONOPOLY in all companies! But I guess it wasn't on the agenda.

How? We use gsuite at work.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Windows, Word, Excel has MONOPOLY in all companies! But I guess it wasn't on the agenda.

Uh, no. There’s endless piles of versions of Linux you could use, or macOS - you’re not forced to use Windows at all.

As for Microsoft Office, you could instead use Google’s programs, or iWork, or OpenOffice, or LibreOffice, or there’s tons of other smaller Office competitors.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Brad Smith is a hypocrite.

 

[edgonzalez32]

Wah. Wah. Wah.

Microsoft crying because they don’t have a product that can compete with the iPhone is hilarious.

I get it, Microsoft is in a position of wanting to increase profits by reducing payments to vendors. I wonder how the App Store compares to the cost Microsoft would pay for Apple to carry office in the Apple stores, along with payment for wall placement.

Which was absolutely a thing, company reps (not MS) would come into my Apple store and make sure their products were on the shelves in the places they paid for.

Jfc. I know it’s unbelievably easy to dump on Microsoft on an apple related site. But you just come off as insecure. I’m so tired of this constant ******** on Microsoft around here. It leads to zero discussion.

Microsoft isn’t complaining about competing with the iPhone. As far as anyone can tell, they have zero interest in that. Instead, they’ve positioned themselves as more of a services company more than anything. And it’s smart. The duo looks like a legit awesome device that I’m sure is going to do pretty good in the corporate space. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

the issue here is the App Store. It’s the same problems that come up time and time again. Between the 30% cut, the fact that developers can’t put a CTA that says “go here to sign up” (say what you want, THATS a crap UX issue that shows up because of Apple).

I don’t even know why I’m bothering typing this out. You’re probably going to make some half assed comment ******** on Microsoft because you don’t like them

Ya'll disagreeing and can't even come up with a reason why right? Thank you for proving my point even more.

 

[Tucom]

This is laughable, what a cluck. They're scared Apple will impose threatening competition - and they will - on their new 'Add-droid' powered foldable doohickey.

You know, I got in a tizzy with someone in a previous thread with comments I still attest to and standby my replies with, but perhaps I was too defending...... of MSFT.

That's a bad Brad!

Anyways

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Jfc. I know it’s unbelievably easy to dump on Microsoft on an apple related site. But you just come off as insecure. I’m so tired of this constant ******** on Microsoft around here. It leads to zero discussion.

Microsoft isn’t complaining about competing with the iPhone. As far as anyone can tell, they have zero interest in that.

You do realize they're coming out with their own smartphone, right? The timing couldn't be more paralleling. As per your first quote, yeah man I'm actually right there with ya, but c'mon - this is just bull****.

 

[OriginalMacRat]

Windows, Word, Excel has MONOPOLY in all companies! But I guess it wasn't on the agenda.

Which is why more enlightened countries in Europe don't allow government files to be in proprietary formats as they don't believe that citizens should have to buy proprietary software to read a government document.

OpenDocument - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[827538]

It feels like yesterday it was Microsoft getting slapped left right and center with anti-trust suites and fines.

 

[iFan]

To the best of my knowledge, the committee itself doesn't have powers to change anything. They will do their "investigation" and issue a report and then Congress would have to actually pass laws. That doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Most of these legislators are tech illiterate and don't know where to begin. Both sides of the aisle are upset at big tech for different reasons but still can't seem to agree on what needs to be changed.

On the other hand, states are performing their own anti-trust investigations based on existing law, and there seem to be enough states on a bipartisan basis interested in creating change. Google and Amazon have such a strong presence in their respective fields (high high market share %) - that it would not surprise me if they were forced to change how they operate. How they sell ads, their own brands competing against 3rd parties, etc.

Google probably shouldn't have been allowed to get so big under the previous administration, buying Doubleclick etc, and Amazon would operate entirely differently if they had to separate AWS from their store operations. Apple's got a target on their backs due to the App Store, but this is much less of an issue to Apple than it is to Google/Amazon whose main business is being threatened.

On the other hand, US antirust history tells us that anytime big businesses are split up or sued for antitrust - they seem to emerge just fine in the end. Microsoft being the most recent example.

 

[throAU]

Microsoft is just jealous their store sucks and didn't work out.

If we're talking monopolies, lock in and shady business practice, lets look into Azure vs. on-prem windows server licensing costs (short version: they're ramping up the minimum cost of Windows server in order to force people to cloud).

 

[DummyFool]

By the law it's self evident that Apple as a Monopoly as it can deny anybody to put an App in the only available store for ANY reasons they want. We will see what happen, it is more about politic then anything else.

 

[slomojoe]

Wah. Wah. Wah.

Microsoft crying because they don’t have a product that can compete with the iPhone is hilarious.

I get it, Microsoft is in a position of wanting to increase profits by reducing payments to vendors. I wonder how the App Store compares to the cost Microsoft would pay for Apple to carry office in the Apple stores, along with payment for wall placement.

Which was absolutely a thing, company reps (not MS) would come into my Apple store and make sure their products were on the shelves in the places they paid for.

problem is, it's anti-competitive and that hurts us, the consumers of apps since developers could be much more competitive in pricing if they weren't paying 30% off the top

 

[A MacBook lover]

you could instead use Google’s programs

or not. Google does not have America’s best interest at heart. People should not be supporting anything they stand for.
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problem is, it's anti-competitive and that hurts us, the consumers of apps since developers could be much more competitive in pricing if they weren't paying 30% off the top

Actually no it’s not.

Apps can be side loaded for free bypassing the app store.

With the App Store, apple is providing a service.

 

[neilah1]

I guess Brad forgot about the Xbox Live E-commerce store they run where Microsoft takes 30% of a game publisher’s Xbox App Store revenues.

 

[alien3dx]

Microsoft is just jealous their store sucks and didn't work out.

If we're talking monopolies, lock in and shady business practice, lets look into Azure vs. on-prem windows server licensing costs (short version: they're ramping up the minimum cost of Windows server in order to force people to cloud).

dont think so.

.net core can be deploy on mac/linux.
sql server can deploy in docker mode.
office in mac/ios.
azure have linux vm.

what really shaddy in macos arm

nobody knew homebrew will work.
nobody knew performance 80386_64 apps will work

apple store doesn't have the capability to distribute apps privately except own company and we must be paid yearly.

** i mean custom vendor 2 vendor apps which no need freakin "APPLE" need to provide access login.
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or not. Google does not have America’s best interest at heart. People should not be supporting anything they stand for.
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Actually no it’s not.

Apps can be side loaded for free bypassing the app store.

With the App Store, apple is providing a service.

apps ipa cannot be side load or will hassle in installing to mac each time have update or paid apple developer for publish it.

 

[ryanmp]

Windows, Word, Excel has MONOPOLY in all companies! But I guess it wasn't on the agenda.

So true. And for those that use Microsoft Intune to allow iOS devices to work in their company is even more of a lock-in. The app protect that Microsoft imposes forces the use of the Microsoft Edge browser, you cannot change it to Safari. Microsoft drop these little nuggets in that go completely unnoticed.

Either way the Govt. needs to stay out of this. Apple provides an ecosystem that just works. I download an app and I can expect privacy, security and it just works.

 

[richw2000]

Competitor doesn’t like super successful product. How unusual

 

[acgmph]

Thanks for the reminder to cancel my personal Microsoft 365 subscription. $100 a year back in my pocket.

 

[alien3dx]

Thanks for the reminder to cancel my personal Microsoft 365 subscription. $100 a year back in my pocket.

why not use default pages or buy default box . Cheaper?

** dam if adobe offer boxes again

 

[Seoras]

Microsoft wishes it had thought of the App Store back in its hay days when it was in a position to enforce quality, security, and at the same time, make 30%.

 

[gleepskip]

Google does not have America’s best interest at heart. People should not be supporting anything they stand for.

I think you'll be hard-pressed to find any sizable tech company who has "America's best interest at heart." Otherwise, we probably wouldn't have these upcoming hearings. Microsoft getting a say is like a crime family having a public forum to complain about another crime family.

 

[mnsportsgeek]

So true. And for those that use Microsoft Intune to allow iOS devices to work in their company is even more of a lock-in. The app protect that Microsoft imposes forces the use of the Microsoft Edge browser, you cannot change it to Safari. Microsoft drop these little nuggets in that go completely unnoticed.

Either way the Govt. needs to stay out of this. Apple provides an ecosystem that just works. I download an app and I can expect privacy, security and it just works.

That’s definitely specific to your company. We use intune and have Safari.

 

[rgeneral]

Uh, no. There’s endless piles of versions of Linux you could use, or macOS - you’re not forced to use Windows at all.

As for Microsoft Office, you could instead use Google’s programs, or iWork, or OpenOffice, or LibreOffice, or there’s tons of other smaller Office competitors.

the problem is the compatibility. Most companies have to choose Microsoft Office because they have a monopoly. What we need a standard like wifi. Every company can make it compatible. Compete on features.