While the warning from Beijing may lead to some blowback, it's unclear what the consequences might be. In June, the Biden administration agreed to wave tariffs on solar panels from the four countries caught up in the probe for two years, a major win for the Chinese industry. The hoarding may have had the desired effect. These four countries supply roughly 80% of the panels in the U.S., and the uncertainty has placed utilities in a bind. tariffs by building panels in Southeast Asia using Chinese materials. That probe, which has inspired the ire of both the public and the private sector, is examining whether solar companies operating out of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are evading long-standing U.S. The reason: a Commerce Department probe into solar suppliers in the region that's ongoing. This appears to confirm the suspicions of the utility NextEra, whose chief financial officer Kirk Crews said on an earnings call in April that Chinese multinational companies in Southeast Asia were withholding shipments of both solar modules and the cells that comprise them. The Chinese Industrial Ministry called out hoarding, saying in a notice issued Wednesday that the practice is “strictly prohibited” and that there is an “urgent need to deepen industry management” in what is the world's largest solar manufacturing market.
In the report, Microsoft said that "we’re continuously evaluating how we can best support partners and make Microsoft software available to customers across all environments, including those of other cloud providers.” OVHCloud told the Wall Street Journal that the complaint was filed in conjunction with several other companies, which it did not name.
And just last year cloud storage company Nextcloud filed a complaint about the bundling of OneDrive and Windows OS. In 2020 Slack filed a similar complaint alleging that Microsoft wasn't letting other services integrate with Teams, instead capturing market share by bundling it with Office 365. This isn't the first time Microsoft has come under scrutiny for the way it bundles products. “Through abusing its dominant position, Microsoft undermines fair competition and limits consumer choice in the cloud computing services market," OVHCloud told WSJ. The complaint, which was filed with the European Commission, alleges that Microsoft's Azure Cloud is cheaper to use than its competitors because of the way Microsoft licenses its Office products. A French cloud company has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft, according to the Wall Street Journal, targeting the way Microsoft licenses its popular Office software suite.