Tech giants Microsoft Corp and Google smoke peace pipe

Tech giants, Microsoft Corp and Google buried the hatchet only two days after EU antitrust agencies presented the search-engine company another statement  of objections partly resulting from Microsoft-backed lobbying.

Microsoft and Alphabet Inc's Google, two arch rivals in the US technology world for over a decade, reached a global agreement to end their lawsuits.

"Our companies compete vigorously, but we want to do so on the merits of our products, not in legal proceedings," Google said yesterday in a statement. "As a result, following our patent agreement, we've now agreed to withdraw regulatory complaints against one another."

The tech giants were already in the process of resolving their long-drawn patent stand-off with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella congratulating Sundar Pichai  when he was named CEO of Google.

The companies are now working together on Google's Angular JavaScript development framework, which made use of Microsoft's Typescript programming language.

The two companies had also sent representatives to speak at each other's conferences.

The clash was especially bitter in Brussels, where Microsoft urged EU regulators to mete out similar treatment to its rival, after being levied vast antitrust fines.

Microsoft had lobbied hard at the EU to investigate Google's search practices and also helped fund ICOMP, an industry group that aided many of smaller companies that had issues about Google.

According to a Microsoft spokesman who spoke to AFP, the decision to withdraw its regulatory complaints against Google around the world reflected "changing legal priorities" while the companies continued "competing vigorously."

The move comes only days after the EU launched a new anti-trust battle with Google, over charges that the US tech giant was abusing the dominance of its Android mobile phone operating system.

According to commentators, the charges, which come one year after Brussels took on Google over its search engine, come as a huge blow to one of the company's most strategic businesses and could change the face of the global smartphone sector.