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The Open Cloud Coalition (OCC) launched in the UK and European Union on 29 October 2024 with 10 founding members, including Google Cloud and several smaller providers. It is an advocacy coalition—not a cloud platform, regulator or certification scheme—campaigning for more interoperable services, clearer pricing, fairer licensing and stronger competition in public cloud.
Its importance is now easier to assess because the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has completed its cloud investigation and taken further action on egress fees, interoperability and Microsoft licensing.
What launched on 29 October 2024?
The OCC’s launch announcement described a coalition of cloud providers and users working across the UK and EU. Its stated goals are openness, interoperability, security, reliability, resilience, transparency and customer choice. The coalition says it will produce research, respond to regulatory consultations, advocate policy reform and build evidence about competition and market fairness.
That makes the OCC a policy and industry body. It cannot sell infrastructure, set prices or order a provider to change a contract. Any customer benefit must come indirectly through regulation, procurement reform, provider decisions and stronger evidence from buyers.
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The launch took place while European authorities and the UK CMA were examining competition in cloud infrastructure. The OCC therefore entered an active policy debate rather than creating a new technical standard or marketplace.
Read the OCC launch announcement.
Who founded the coalition?
The launch announcement named 10 members:
- Centerprise International
- Civo
- Gigas
- Google Cloud
- ControlPlane
- DTP Group
- Prolinx
- Pulsant
- Clairo
- Room 101
Membership grew to 15 companies in December 2024 when Adarga, BlackBox Hosting, Dark Matter, DataVita and National Cloud joined, according to the OCC. Parliamentary evidence submitted in March 2025 referred to 18 members and listed organisations including Nscale and Smart DCC. That document indicated its list might not be exhaustive.
The OCC website shows activity through July 2026, but no authoritative, dated membership register establishes a definitive total for August 2026. Membership growth is therefore evidence of momentum, not proof of a particular current number.
See the December 2024 membership announcement and the parliamentary evidence.
What does “open cloud” mean?
In OCC policy language, “open cloud” is a set of customer outcomes, not one product or universally enforced specification. It generally means a buyer can combine providers, move data and workloads, understand the cost of leaving and avoid commercial terms that unfairly disadvantage rivals.
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Interoperability
Interoperability means systems can work together through compatible interfaces, formats and services. It does not guarantee that a complete application can be moved unchanged.
Portability
Portability is the ability to transfer data or workloads. Exporting a virtual machine may be straightforward while moving a proprietary database, identity system or AI pipeline is expensive and disruptive.
Reversibility
Reversibility is the practical ability to leave and operate elsewhere. It includes migration engineering, testing, downtime, retraining, compliance reapproval and contract termination—not just an export button.
Multi-cloud and neutrality
Multi-cloud uses more than one provider. Cloud-neutral procurement avoids designing a tender around one supplier’s ecosystem before alternatives have been assessed. Neither approach eliminates the operational cost of running several environments.
Which problems is the OCC targeting?
The OCC’s manifesto and submissions identify several sources of dependency:
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- Technical lock-in caused by proprietary APIs, databases, networking, identity and managed services.
- Data-egress charges that make moving large datasets expensive.
- Restrictive or discriminatory software licensing.
- Opaque prices, bundled incentives, free credits and vendor-funded discounts that can hide long-term costs.
- Public-sector frameworks and procurement structures that make challenger providers difficult to appoint.
- Insufficient skills and market diversity.
Its manifesto calls for open standards and portability requirements, clearer pricing, functionality parity where licensing is relevant, cloud-neutral public procurement, scrutiny of foreclosure through framework agreements and investment in cloud skills.
Read the OCC manifesto and its CMA position paper.
Why public-cloud competition matters to buyers
Cloud concentration affects more than headline compute rates. A procurement team must price the cost of entering, operating and exiting a service. That can include data transfer, dual-running during migration, application rewrites, database conversion, identity redesign, support contracts, committed-spend obligations and staff training.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsPublic-sector customers also need to assess resilience, accreditation, data residency, performance, supplier viability and support. OCC membership is not evidence that a provider meets those requirements for a specific workload.
Smaller providers may offer UK or European hosting, specialist support or more transparent relationships, but they may have fewer regions, managed services, partners, AI accelerators and large-scale support operations than hyperscalers. A multi-cloud design can reduce dependency while increasing monitoring, governance, security and skills costs.
What happened after the launch?
The coalition published its manifesto, expanded membership and submitted evidence on digital government and the CMA’s cloud investigation. Its latest-news archive records continuing policy activity, but public statements and membership growth should be distinguished from enforceable market outcomes.
View the OCC news archive and its digital-government response.
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What did the CMA find?
The CMA opened its cloud-services market investigation on 5 October 2023 and closed it on 31 July 2025. It found that Amazon Web Services and Microsoft held positions of significant market power in UK public-cloud infrastructure services. The decision identified competition concerns involving:
- Data-egress fees.
- Interoperability barriers.
- Switching and multi-cloud limitations.
- Microsoft’s licensing of business software on rival clouds.
The CMA recommended prioritising strategic-market-status investigations into Microsoft and AWS in relation to cloud activities. “Significant market power” is a competition finding; it is not the same as a legal finding that the market is a monopoly.
See the CMA case page and the final decision report.
What changed in 2026?
In March 2026, the CMA said AWS and Microsoft had taken material steps on interoperability and cloud-egress fees for UK customers. The authority said it would continue engaging with both companies and assess whether customers received meaningful benefits. This was not a blanket CMA order removing every egress fee.
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The CMA also opened a separate strategic-market-status investigation into Microsoft’s business-software ecosystem. That process can examine whether Microsoft licensing practices reduce competition in cloud services. As of 18 August 2026, the investigation remained open, with an indicative statutory deadline of 13 February 2027.
Read the CMA’s March 2026 announcement and the Microsoft investigation page.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How independent is the coalition?
The OCC includes smaller providers, cloud-related companies and Google Cloud, a major hyperscaler competing with AWS and Microsoft. Microsoft argued in a CMA submission that Google established the coalition as an alternative trade association after efforts involving CISPE. That is Microsoft’s characterization, not an established regulatory conclusion.
The OCC presents itself as a broader coalition of providers and users with equal member voices. Buyers should consider both facts: the coalition may provide evidence from challengers and customers, while some policy positions can also align with members’ commercial interests.
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How should a buyer test “open” cloud claims?
- Map dependencies. List databases, identity, networking, observability, AI services, licensing and operational tools that would need replacement.
- Price exit, not just entry. Model egress, migration engineering, dual-running, downtime, termination charges and committed-spend obligations.
- Demand contract detail. Check export formats, notice periods, support during migration, licensing on rival clouds and any restrictions on using multiple providers.
- Run an exit test. Prove that a representative workload and its data can be restored elsewhere within an acceptable time and compliance boundary.
- Compare total operating cost. Include security, monitoring, skills, support and governance for a multi-cloud design.
- For public procurement, preserve contestability. Require portability, interoperability and exit plans in the tender rather than trying to add them after award.
What would success look like?
The OCC’s influence should be judged by outcomes rather than its launch or membership count:
- Regulators cite its evidence and adopt remedies addressing the identified barriers.
- Customers pay less to move data and can obtain equivalent functionality on rival platforms.
- Public contracts permit meaningful competition and include tested exit plans.
- Licensing and bundled incentives become clearer and less discriminatory.
- Independent providers and actual users contribute evidence, not only competing vendors.
Openness also has trade-offs. Portability rules can constrain product design or add compliance costs, while proprietary managed services may deliver more automation and performance. Customers must decide how much optionality justifies the complexity and potential loss of integration.
The Bottom Line
The Open Cloud Coalition’s significance is political and practical, not technological: it gives providers and users a vehicle to argue for portability, fair licensing and contestable procurement. The CMA’s findings show that those concerns are material, but only enforceable remedies and measurable customer improvements will prove whether the coalition changes public-cloud competition.
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