Cloud Competition Probe Affecting London Tech Giants

The UK’s cloud infrastructure market could be subject to a probe from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), after communications regulator Ofcom released a report highlighting the fees for transferring data and committed spends that make it harder for customers to switch suppliers. While the headline does not have the same mass appeal as many other stories, the implications of such an investigation will be important for thousands of businesses across the country – many of whom are already adopting cloud-based solutions.

Leading the market are tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, who hold a combined majority in the sector. The investigation has been greeted with a wary eye among many of the players in the cloud infrastructure sector as the CMA look to review the current landscape of the market.

Another key source of business news in London this morning comes from AstraZeneca Plc, with the pharmaceutical giant announcing positive results from a clinical trial involving Lynparza and Imfinzi. The combination of the two drugs helped progression-free survival in newly diagnosed patients with advanced ovarian cancer and without certain tumor mutations in a phase III trial.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden will not be attending King Charles III’s coronation in May, with the White House announcing First Lady Jill Biden will be representing the US at the ceremony. After a turbulent year in the housing market, UK homeowners are taking almost twice as long to sell their properties than a year ago – averaging 35 days to agree a sale on a UK home last month.

For the UK, Bloomberg’s Editors argue that it may not seem like such a bad thing if “politics is getting boring,” claiming that it means less newsworthy drama. However, the impact of this “boring” period is still felt in places like Northern Ireland where Brexit put additional strain on the region and threatens to unsettle the peace brokered by the Good Friday Agreement. As the youth of the region look beyond peace and look for economic prosperity, two key events occurred over the weekend as UK business confidence crept up in the first quarter of the year, while Teck Resources Ltd rejected Glencore Plc’s $23 billion offer.

Shell Plc, the oil and gas major, will finish off the week with its first quarter update – Shell reported a record profit for 2022. So, the outlook for UK businesses looks set to remain uncertain, especially as the CMA may be about to open an investigation into the cloud infrastructure market.