Japan’s Antitrust Watchdog Probes Microsoft Unit Over Azure (1)

Japanese regulators are investigating Microsoft Corp.’s local unit over possible anti-competitive practices involving the Azure cloud platform.

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission is probing whether the Redmond-based company restricted customers’ use of competing cloud services by preventing its software from running on platforms other than Azure, a person familiar with the matter said. The FTC launched an on-site inspection of Microsoft Japan’s Tokyo office to see if further action is needed, the person said, declining to be named discussing nonpublic information.

Microsoft is engaged in a costly contest with Amazon.com Inc.’s AWS and Alphabet Inc.’s Google Cloud for ...