Microsoft Believes AWS Does Not Operate Legally In China

More specifically, the company claims that it is the only multinational cloud provider that has a joint venture with a partner that the Chinese government recognizes.

In other words, Microsoft Azure is the only US public cloud that operates legally in China.

This is what, Chris Capossela, the chief marketing officer at Microsoft seems to believe. His statement at a JP Morgan Chase tech conference in Boston raised a fair few eyebrows, as AWS, the public cloud market leader, and IBM, both sell cloud services in China.

The statement:

“We are the only multinational company that does that.”

Worth a mention that Amazon has partnered up with a local Internet provider by the name of Beijing Sinnet for its Chinese facilities.

The company shared details about this relationship in a blog post a while back, revealing that under this arrangement, the partner company manages and bill customers on behalf of AWS. So, any claim that AWS is not operating legally in China is not just completely untrue, but rather odd.

IBM, meanwhile, works with 21Vianet, the same partner that Microsoft uses in China, which makes the above statement odder still.

Just as Azure China is operated by 21Vianet, the AWS Beijing region is operated by Sinnet.

China may have tricky regulations and government policies to keep data under its control, but it is one of the most important markets for US companies. Forrester Research predicts that the public cloud market in China will soar from $2.2 billion revenue in 2016 to $3.8 billion by the time 2020 rolls around.