Google Cloud Eliminates Exit Fees, Hits at Microsoft’s Licensing Tactics

Google announced today that it has eliminated Google Cloud exit fees for customers wishing to migrate to another cloud provider.

“Starting today, Google Cloud customers who wish to stop using Google Cloud and migrate their data to another cloud provider and/or on premises, can take advantage of free network data transfer to migrate their data out of Google Cloud,” Google vice president Amit Zavery writes in the announcement post. “This applies to all customers globally.”

The impact of this announcement is straightforward enough, but Google also criticizes Microsoft for a related cost that prevents cross-cloud provider migrations in the first place: Its restrictive and unfair licensing practices.

“Certain legacy providers leverage their on-premises software monopolies to create cloud monopolies, using restrictive licensing practices that lock in customers and warp competition,” Zavery adds, clearly referencing Microsoft. “The complex web of licensing restrictions includes picking and choosing who their customers can work with and how; charging 5x the cost if customers decide to use certain competitors’ clouds; and limiting interoperability of must-have software with competitors’ cloud infrastructure. These and other restrictions have no technical basis and may impose a 300% cost increase to customers. In contrast, the cost for customers to migrate data out of a cloud provider is minimal.”

In Google’s view, customers should pick a cloud provider based on their needs, and not be restricted from using their best choice because of unfair licensing practices. And they certainly have the ear of regulators: The EU is currently investigating Microsoft for this very issue.

You can learn more about Google’s new data transfer policies on the Google Cloud website.