Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to testify in Google antitrust case on Monday. Here’s what you should know

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is likely to testify on Monday as a witness for the US Justice Department in the historic Google antitrust case, reported Reuters citing a court docket.

The report notes that Nadella is likely to ask Nadella about his company’s efforts to expand the reach of Edge browser and Bing search engine owing to the obstacles posed by Google’s dominance in the market.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Vice President of business development, Jonathan Tinter testified in the antitrust trial on Thursday. He revealed that a five-year period of truce between the two rivals crashed down in 2020 over rivalry around the web-search businesses, reported Bloomberg.

Google parent Alphabet had insisted on the use of Google search on the main screen of Microsoft’s Surface Duo smartphone in order to license the Android operating system, Tineter testified. He added that Google rejected Microsoft’s request for using company’s own search engine, Bing.

Tinter also revealed that Google prohibited Microsoft from informing the users about how to change their default search engine.

“Ultimately, for the Duo to be successful we needed the license from Google,” he said. “We wanted the search entry points to be Bing. They wanted the search entry points to be Google.”

Why is Google being sued by the US Justice Department?

Google is being sued by the US Justice Department over allegations that the tech giant smothered over the competition by paying companies like Apple, Verizon and others in order to make its search engine the first that users see when they open their devices, AP reported.

Google has argued that it dominates the search engine market because it is better than the competition while noting that users have the option of switching to other search engines with a couple of clicks.

The antitrust case is the biggest suit brought by the Justice Department since the body targeted Microsoft’s dominance over the Windows operating system around 25 years back. The case was first filed during the Trump Administration in 2020 and the trial began on September 12 at the US District Court in Washington DC.