Microsoft escapes EU antitrust fine after unbundling Teams
Microsoft is no longer in trouble with the European Commission, at least when it comes to Teams. The commission has accepted the changes and commitments the company made in response to its concerns related to Microsoft's bundling of its Teams collaboration platform with its other apps. This particular antitrust saga started years ago when Slack filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft, claiming that it illegally bundled its work chat competitor with the popular Office suite. The commission opened a formal investigation into the matter in 2023 and found in 2024 that Microsoft did indeed violate antitrust laws.
"Microsoft may have granted Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications," the commission said at the time. "This advantage may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams' competitors and Microsoft's offerings." The company was facing a fine equivalent to 10 percent of its annual worldwide turnover.
Even before the commission published its preliminary finding, Microsoft already unbundled Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 productivity suites across the European Union. However, the commission found the changes it implemented "insufficient to address its concerns." So Microsoft made several commitments to avoid a fine, including offering customers in Europe versions of its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites without Teams. Those versions are sold at an "appreciably lower price." The company also committed not to offer discount rates on Teams or on suites with Teams included. Microsoft gave Teams' competitors "effective interoperability" with some of its products and services, as well, and allowed them to embed Office apps in their own products. In addition, it allowed customers in Europe to extract their Teams messaging data for use in competing services.
The commission tested those commitments between May and June this year. In response to the commission's test results, Microsoft further increased the price difference between the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites with Teams and those without by 50 percent. The company also has to display suites options without Teams if it advertises its suites options with the messaging app. "The commitments offered by Microsoft will remain in force for seven years, except for the commitments related to interoperability and data portability which will remain in force for ten years," the commission wrote. A trustee will be monitoring Microsoft's implementation and will be making sure it remains true to its commitments within that timeframe. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/microsoft-escapes-eu-antitrust-fine-after-unbundling-teams-123052522.html?src=rss
