Things are heating up! You may recall that a couple of months back Microsoft expressed its displeasure at the App Store requirements that Apple had set up for developers.
Well, chief legal officer over at Redmond, Brad Smith, is once again in the headlines after he complained about this policy in a private antitrust meeting.
The Microsoft president was specifically contacted because of the company’s history in antitrust cases, as the firm was previously investigated and fined over how it offered Internet Explorer to Windows users back in the 90s.
Who knows this better than Microsoft, right?
A digital meeting was held with the United States House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee members ahead of a public hearing next week.
This report has the details of that meeting, where Smith once again complained about Apple after he previously called for an antitrust investigation over the requirements the Cupertino based company had put up for those that wanted to put their apps up on its store.
Speaking at a Politico event in late June, the Microsoft president explained that Apple charges up to 30% from developers, who are forced to accept these requirements if they want to offer their iOS apps to iPhone and iPad users.
Microsoft being one such developers, one of the biggest ones there.
Anyway, Apple CEO Tim Cook is likely to addresses these complaints at the hearing.
He, along with representatives of a several other tech giants, are scheduled to appear in the hearing next Monday. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will also be at hand to discuss these competition concerns.
Let’s see how it goes.