By Pradeep Bairaboina
Publication Date: 2026-05-15 06:57:00
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened a strategic market status (SMS) investigation into Microsoft’s business software ecosystem under the digital markets competition regime introduced in January 2025.
The CMA’s inquiry will consider whether Microsoft holds SMS in business software and whether that position could affect customer choice and competition.
The watchdog will assess practices, including product bundling, interoperability constraints and default settings that could make switching harder or reduce competitive pressure from rival suppliers.
The investigation will cover Microsoft products used by UK organisations across productivity software, PC and server operating systems, database management systems and security software.
The CMA will also examine how competing AI services integrate with Microsoft’s workplace software, as AI functionality becomes part of commonly used tools.
Microsoft’s software ecosystem has more than 15…