What the EU antitrust investigation into Entra ID means for Microsoft

The Information reported that European Union antitrust enforcement officials are investigating whether Microsoft prevents customers from purchasing security software that competes with the Seattle-area cloud computing giant. . The European Commission has confirmed to Information Security Media Group that it has received several complaints regarding Microsoft’s Azure products and is evaluating them based on standard procedures.

According to The Information, Microsoft is not allowing customers of Entra ID (which was called Azure Active Directory until last July) to replace it with competing identity management products such as Okta or Cloudflare. . Regulators will decide whether a Microsoft customer can rely solely on competing security software to authenticate to Microsoft services, or whether he must use Entra ID for this function, Reuters reported on Wednesday. He said he would like to understand what is going on. A European Commission spokesperson told the ISMG that it had a number of investigative powers at its disposal, including the ability to send requests for information.

Microsoft did not respond to requests for comment. According to IDC, with the adoption of Azure Active Directory, Microsoft controlled 23.8% of the $13.6 billion identity and access management market in 2021, while Okta was a distant second with just 9.2% market share. It was 2nd place.

Gartner recognized Microsoft as a leader in access management in 2023, along with Okta, IBM, ForgeRock, and Ping Identity. The latter two companies merged last year after being taken private by Thoma Bravo. Gartner praised Microsoft for offering prices below market average. Tightly integrate Entra ID, Microsoft 365, and Azure. and perform superior threat reporting and identity threat detection.

Among the findings that antitrust investigators find compelling, Gartner notes that implementing alternative multi-factor authentication methods requires significant customization and that external adaptive access and fine-grained They criticized Microsoft for requiring a complex integration process with non-Microsoft products for authentication. Gartner also said that certain access management features of Entra ID require additional licenses, which increases the cost of thwarting attacks on your identity infrastructure.

Not Microsoft’s first antitrust rodeo

Redmond’s bundle of security products and enterprise software licenses could help the company generate more than $20 billion in cyber revenue in 2023, allowing Microsoft to use its market power to force customers into its security suite. This angered regulators and rivals who claimed that the Increased integration drives Microsoft Security revenue to $20 billion).

Just last year, the European Union filed a more than 10-year ban against Microsoft after Salesforce-owned Slack complained that Microsoft was restricting competition by including its Teams conferencing software in Office for free, according to The Information. The Information reported that an antitrust investigation into Buri has begun. Microsoft announced in October that it would allow European customers to pay a slightly lower price for software bundles without the Teams app.

The Federal Trade Commission is investigating how cloud server providers like Microsoft and Amazon bundle server rentals with other types of software (see below). US FTC seeks information on cloud provider cybersecurity).

In response, companies including Google have notified the FTC that Microsoft is using its dominant position in business software to encourage customers to use its security software and other services.

Pure cybersecurity vendors have complained for years of an unfair battle against Microsoft, saying the tech giant’s ability to add security products on top of non-security products forces competitors to compete on price. have argued that it has become impossible.

Europe’s Entra ID investigation is one that the cybersecurity industry will be monitoring very closely.