It was reported that the US technology giant Microsoft was sued by a company in the UK. The plaintiff accused Microsoft of destroying a multi-billion-dollar second-hand software trading market. The plaintiff asked Microsoft to compensate 270 million pounds of Economic loss (equivalent to US$371 million).
According to reports, the plaintiff is the British “Value Licensing Company” (ValueLicensing), which purchased licenses from some old corporate users of Microsoft software (these companies either upgraded their systems or went bankrupt), and then transferred them within the UK and Europe.
Value Licensing Company stated on its official website that by purchasing second-hand Microsoft software, customers can save up to 70% of software expenses. The company also mentioned the case of a customer “NHS Trust”, which used second-hand Microsoft Office 2019 instead of the latest version of the software, which saved 1 million pounds ($1.37 million).
Jonathan Horley, the founder of Value Licensing, accused Microsoft of obstructing competition in the second-hand software market by persuading some companies to give up their permanent software licenses and offering discounts on the purchase of Microsoft cloud computing software (such as Office 365).
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In an interview with the media, Holly said that Microsoft has a business motive, that is, to shift customers to the cloud computing business model and eliminate outdated software licenses from the market, so that companies have no other choice but to move to the cloud computing membership model.
Holly accused Microsoft of abusing market dominance and depriving other companies of the right to buy cheaper IT tools. He said that as the second-hand software market shrinks, software licenses in the hands of some companies have begun to depreciate.
Regarding the value authorization company’s lawsuit, Microsoft said it could not comment on the ongoing lawsuit. In February, Microsoft made policy changes to the traditional perpetually licensed Office software, including shortening the technical support period to five years. In contrast, Office 2016 has provided technical support for ten years.
In 2013, Microsoft announced that the company would restrict the resale and sharing of Xbox game software. Specific policies include requiring users to install the software before playing games, and watermark the software. However, as players rebounded, Microsoft withdrew this policy.
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