Britain’s competition authority has launched an investigation into the market for cloud-infrastructure services.

Cloud services allow remote access to computing resources on demand and over a network.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that such services were being rapidly adopted by many businesses and had become an essential part of how many digital services were delivered to consumers.

“Many businesses now completely rely on cloud services, making effective competition in this market essential,” said the CMA’s chief executive Sarah Cardell.

Licensing practices

Its investigation comes after a referral from the country’s media watchdog Ofcom, which carried out a study on the Stg £7.5 billion market earlier this year.

Ofcom identified a number of features in the supply of cloud services that made it more difficult for customers to switch and use multiple suppliers.

It also outlined concerns about the software licensing practices of some cloud providers, in particular Microsoft.

Ofcom found that Microsoft and Amazon, between them, made up 70-80% of the sector in Britain.

The CMA inquiry group will shortly publish a statement setting out the proposed areas of focus for its investigation.