The European Commission delivered a landmark preliminary view on June 25, 2026, declaring that Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure meet the criteria for designation as gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). This marks the first time the EU has extended the regulatory framework beyond consumer-facing digital platforms into enterprise cloud infrastructure, potentially reshaping the global cloud computing landscape.

What the DMA Means for Cloud Services

The DMA, fully applicable since May 2023, aims to ensure fair and contestable digital markets by imposing obligations on large platforms that act as "gatekeepers" between businesses and end users. Until now, designations have focused on search engines, social networks, operating systems, and app stores. The preliminary view on AWS and Azure signals a significant expansion of the Act’s scope.

For a cloud service to be designated as a gatekeeper, it must have a significant impact on the EU internal market, provide a core platform service that is an important gateway for business users to reach end users, and enjoy an entrenched and durable position. Both AWS and Azure easily cross the quantitative thresholds: each has over 45 million monthly active business users in the EU, annual EU turnover exceeding €7.5 billion, and market capitalization above €75 billion.

The Commission’s investigation, opened in late 2025, focused on infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) markets, where AWS and Azure together hold a combined market share of over 60% in the European Economic Area. Google Cloud remains below the threshold but could be included later if its share grows.

Specific Obligations That Would Apply

If the preliminary view becomes a final designation, AWS and Azure would face a sweeping set of obligations designed to level the playing field for smaller cloud providers and give customers more control. Key requirements would include:

  • Interoperability mandates: Azure and AWS must provide open APIs that allow seamless data portability and make it technically possible for users to switch cloud providers without losing functionality or incurring excessive costs.
  • Ban on self-preferencing: Neither company could rank its own higher-margin services or bundles above third-party offerings in their marketplaces or recommendation engines.
  • Prohibition of anticompetitive data use: Customer workload data cannot be used to improve the cloud provider’s own services in ways that disadvantage competitors who lack that insight.
  • Fair and transparent pricing: Both companies would be required to disclose detailed breakdowns of egress fees, support costs, and discount structures, and to justify any differential treatment of business users.
  • Uninstallability: Enterprise users must be able to easily remove pre-installed management tools and agents that lock them into a particular cloud ecosystem.

These rules echo those imposed on Apple and Google in mobile ecosystems, but they are tailored to the unique dynamics of cloud infrastructure, where switching costs and technical lock-in have long been points of friction for enterprise IT.

The Preliminary Stage and Next Steps

The Commission’s preliminary view is not a final decision. AWS and Microsoft now have 30 days to respond with counterarguments and evidence. A final designation decision, following an advisory committee and a potential hearing, is expected by the end of 2026. Once designated, the companies would have six months to comply with the full set of obligations, though some interoperability rules could come with a longer implementation phase.

Both companies have publicly pushed back. Microsoft issued a statement arguing that the cloud market is “highly competitive and continuously innovating,” citing the growth of Google Cloud, Oracle, and a wave of European providers like OVHcloud and Deutsche Telekom. Amazon said the DMA was “designed for consumer platforms, not for enterprise infrastructure that is chosen by sophisticated IT buyers after rigorous evaluation.”

Yet the European Commission’s competition chief, in a press briefing, insisted that the technical and financial barriers to switching cloud providers have become so high that they effectively lock businesses into a single vendor, stifling competition and innovation. Egress fees alone, which can reach tens of thousands of euros for a typical enterprise migration, have been a particular target of regulators and industry groups like CISPE.

Impact on Enterprise Customers and the Windows Ecosystem

For Windows-focused IT professionals, the potential designation of Azure as a gatekeeper has direct operational implications. Many enterprises that run Windows Server, SQL Server, and other Microsoft workloads in Azure could see new flexibility. Interoperability rules might require Microsoft to provide full tooling and support for running Microsoft software on competing clouds without performance or licensing penalties.

Microsoft’s current licensing practices—often described as “bring your own license” (BYOL) with portability restrictions—have been under scrutiny. A DMA designation could force Microsoft to allow customers who purchase Windows Server licenses under volume agreements to run those instances on AWS, Google Cloud, or any other provider without additional cost or technical hurdles. This would be a seismic shift for hybrid deployments.

Moreover, Azure Arc, Azure Stack, and other hybrid tools that extend Azure management to on-premises and multi-cloud environments might need to be opened up so that third-party tools can integrate at parity. The obligation to avoid self-preferencing could also reshape the Azure Marketplace, limiting the visibility boost that Microsoft gives to its own first-party services.

On the AWS side, similar dynamics would apply to Amazon’s vast portfolio of proprietary services like Aurora, Redshift, and Lambda. The DMA would require that customers can migrate from these services to open-source or third-party equivalents without losing data or suffering degraded performance.

A Wider Regulatory Ripple Effect

The EU move is already drawing attention from regulators in other jurisdictions. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is conducting a parallel investigation into cloud infrastructure services, and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has signaled interest in cloud lock-in practices. A DMA designation would set a precedent that could accelerate similar actions globally.

For Microsoft, this adds another layer to a complex regulatory landscape. The company has already been adjusting Windows and Azure to comply with the DMA’s rules on operating systems and browsers, and now the cloud platform itself faces a shake-up. Some industry observers believe Microsoft might preemptively roll out changes—such as reducing egress fees or publishing clearer portability roadmaps—to influence the final decision or soften the blow.

Community Reaction and Enterprise Concerns

Early reactions from the IT community highlight a mix of cautious optimism and skepticism. In enterprise forums and CIO circles, many welcome the push for interoperability but worry about compliance overhead and potential degradation of deeply integrated cloud services.

“We’re finally going to see real portability standards,” said one senior cloud architect in a LinkedIn discussion. “But I dread the years of half-baked implementations and compliance theater before anything actually works.” Others note that while the DMA can force technical opening, it cannot mandate that customers actually multi-cloud, so the practical impact may take time to materialize.

Some European cloud advocates argue that the DMA’s focus on large hyperscalers will accelerate the growth of local providers. If switching becomes economically and technically feasible, governments and regulated industries may feel safer moving sensitive workloads to EU-based clouds that are already compliant with GDPR and other regional rules.

The Road Ahead for AWS and Azure

Should the final designation come to pass, AWS and Azure would join the list of designated gatekeepers under the DMA, which already includes Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta, ByteDance, and others. Non-compliance can result in fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover, and systematic infringements can lead to structural remedies.

Both companies are likely to engage in intense lobbying and may offer voluntary commitments—such as standardized APIs or an industry code of conduct—to avoid the strictest obligations. The outcome will hinge on whether the Commission deems such commitments sufficient to ensure contestability.

For now, the June 25 notification signals that the EU is serious about extending platform regulation into the backbone of the digital economy. Enterprise IT leaders should start assessing how potential interoperability rules could affect their architecture decisions, vendor negotiations, and multi-cloud strategies. While the final rules are months away, the direction is clear: the walled gardens of hyperscale cloud are under regulatory siege.