During his January 12, 2022 hearing before the National Assembly, Benoit Quérét indicated that the digital sector would be one of his mandate’s priorities. The President of the Autorité de la concurrence thus announced that he intends to focus on ” Emergence of new basic infrastructures such as the cloud “Declared that” It will be important and justified for Autorité to quickly undertake in-depth work on the consequences of the cloud in all sectors in cooperation with the relevant sectoral authorities “.
According to the provisions of Article L.462-4 of commercial law, so Autorité decides to seek an opinion on its own to assess the competitive situation in clouds.
Cloud, infrastructure and remote services that adapt to needs and uses
The clouds It represents all shared services, which can be accessed over the Internet, on demand, and paid for by use, and thus, some of the basic infrastructures (data centers especially). Store documents online, online messaging, or files flow Video examples of services clouds.
A rapidly growing sector supported by public authorities
The clouds Thus it provides multiple benefits to consumers, businesses or public administrations with easy and quick access to IT resources. The clouds It also allows for new work organisations, which are particularly useful during the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.
This view comes in a context where the French and European market for clouds Thriving, with average annual growth expected to exceed 25% in the coming years, with strong bets in creating value for the economy.
this ascent clouds It is accompanied by significant support from public authorities in the research and development of innovative technologies, in order to support the digitization of the economy as well as European and French industry. The latest national support plan for the sector clouds French1 It is clarification.
Complex ecosystem analysis
The purpose of Autorité’s opinion is to enable it to carry out a comprehensive analysis of competition performance in this sector.
In this context, investigation services will study in particular the competitive dynamics of the sector and the presence of players in the different sectors of the value chain, as well as their contractual relationships, in a context in which multiple alliances and partnerships are forged with service delivery clouds.
Emphasis will also be placed on identifying relevant markets in cloudsAssessing the position and competitive advantages of the various actors involved and examining potential business practices.
The competition authority may also, when required, submit proposals that will improve the competitive performance of the sector.
Schedule
As part of its investigation, Autorité will organize, around the summer, a wide public consultation aimed at collecting feedback from all stakeholders. Following this consultation, Autorité will release the final conclusions of the sectoral investigation in early 2023.
Indeed, operators who wish to share their feedback with the authority are invited to send it via the following email box: [email protected]
A team with a variety of skills
Given the scope of this view and the complex nature of the techniques used in this sector, the Autorité de la concurrence decided, for the first time in its advisory competence, to form an educational team with diverse attributes (lawyers, economists and Data Scientists) from the service of the digital economy newly builtAnd units specialized in these competition issues and the Economic Department of the Authority.
1On November 2, 2021, the Minister of State for Digital Transformation and Electronic Communications announced the industrial plan to support the French cloud sector, the third part of the national cloud strategy: https://www.entreprises.gouv.fr/fr/actualites/numerique/strategie-nationale-cloud-lancement-du-plan-industriel-de-soutien-la-filiere