Microsoft avoids EU fine after Slack complained about Teams bundling

Microsoft has avoided a good from the European Commission aft it was charged with EU antitrust violations for bundling its Teams app with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. The European Commission says it has accepted commitments from Microsoft to code contention concerns related to Microsoft Teams, pursuing an anti-competitive ailment filed by Slack successful July 2020.

“The commitments code the Commission’s concerns related to the tying of Microsoft Teams to the company’s fashionable productivity applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, included successful its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites for concern customers,” says the European Commission.

Microsoft has committed to bash the following:

• Make disposable versions of its Office suites without Teams and astatine a reduced price
• Allow customers with semipermanent licenses to power to suites without Teams
• Provide interoperability for cardinal functionalities betwixt connection and collaboration tools that vie with Teams and definite Microsoft products
• Allow customers to determination their information retired of Teams to facilitate the usage of competing solutions

Most of the commitments from Microsoft volition beryllium enforced by EU lawmakers for 7 years, with the interoperability and information portability ones successful unit for 10 years. Microsoft originally unbundled Teams from Office in Europe successful 2023 successful an effort to code regulator concerns, and then spun disconnected Teams from Office 365 as its ain abstracted app globally past year.

“Organizations large and tiny crossed Europe and astir the satellite trust heavy connected videoconferencing, chat and collaboration tools, particularly since the coronavirus pandemic,” says Teresa Ribera, enforcement vice president for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition astatine the European Commission. “Today’s determination truthful opens up contention successful this important market, and ensures that businesses tin freely take the connection and collaboration merchandise that champion suits their needs.”

EU lawmakers first opened a Microsoft antitrust probe into Teams bundling successful 2023, aft Slack filed its anti-competitive ailment amid aggravated contention with Microsoft that developed aft the covid-19 pandemic began. Slack’s archetypal complaint alleged that Microsoft had “illegally tied” its Microsoft Teams merchandise to Office and is “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the existent outgo to endeavor customers.”