From SMEs to the largest public and private sector organisations, European businesses face increasingly restrictive software licensing practices. The result is diminishing choice and control over their cloud and AI operations. In its fourth report, ECCO highlights that Broadcom remains the most flagrant example of unfair competition, while also raising growing concerns about SAP’s practices.
05 / 10 / 26
The European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO) has published its fourth report, updating the findings of its previous reports, which are available on its website. Created by CISPE, with Beltug and its French sister CIO organisation Cigref as observers, ECCO monitors how dominant software providers shape competition, choice and control across Europe’s cloud and AI markets.
This fourth report covers two vendors:
ECCO again rates Broadcom ‘red/critical’, as it continues practices that limit choice, raise costs, and lock in customers, while undermining the economic viability of many European cloud providers.
Broadcom has:
Recent licensing changes at SAP have also raised concerns, specifically around:
The report focuses in particular on SAP’s emerging strategy for agentic AI, a market that is quickly becoming a key interface layer for enterprise data. According to ECCO, the concerns are specific and substantial, and the practices identified are potentially anticompetitive.
Beltug discussed the issues around Broadcom with the European Commission over the summer and hopes to see interim measures imposed urgently. Without them, customers risk being pushed into signing new contracts with a Broadcom-approved partner that may or may not meet their sector-specific, operational, sovereignty or data-localisation requirements.