A couple of months ago, we reported that Microsoft may dodge a fine in an antitrust case in the European Union. Well, the Redmond company has indeed avoided the fine.
In 2020, Slack had filed a complaint that claimed Microsoft's bundling of Teams in its Office productivity suite was anti-competitive. It said Microsoft was forcibly installing Teams on Windows, prevented it from being uninstalled. The complaint also mentioned that Microsoft did not reveal the true cost to its customers. The EU opened a formal antitrust investigation against Microsoft in 2023, based on the complaint. Soon after that, Microsoft announced that it would unbundle Teams from Office in Europe. It even unbundled Teams from its productivity software suite globally in 2024. Microsoft launched Teams as a separate app.
But things didn't go its way. In June last year, the European Commission charged Microsoft for violating antitrust laws for bundling Teams illegally. In a bid to avoid a hefty fine, Microsoft told the European Commission that it would make some changes, such as offering interoperability with other software in its Office apps.
The European Commission has accepted Microsoft's proposal, which includes some important commitments that the company has to follow for 7 years. You can read the official statement here.
Microsoft has to offer consumers in the EU, versions of its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites without Teams. It has to price them at a lower price than suites that include Teams. Microsoft is not allowed to offer a better discount for Office 365 with Teams or other tiers with Teams.
The Commission says that Microsoft has to allow recurrent purchases to switch to suites without Teams, and these suites have to be deployed in datacenters worldwide. As for interoperability, it has to allow third parties access to functions in Microsoft products and services. Third-parties should be allowed to embed Office web apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint in their own products. Likewise, their own products should be allowed to be integrated in Microsoft's core productivity apps. Customers in the EU should be allowed to export their Teams messaging data, and import them into a competing app. The commitments related to interoperability and data portability will remain in force for ten years.
Well, this is a win for consumers, and for services like Slack, Zoom, etc. who can now compete with Teams fairly.
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