It was reported that Microsoft had encountered antitrust complaints from peers in the EU for bundling the enterprise collaboration chat tool Teams and Office office software. According to two people familiar with the matter, in order to prevent the European Commission from For antitrust investigations and fines, Microsoft has proposed to differentiate pricing for Office products that are bundled with Teams software, that is, to charge Teams software separately.
Last year, Slack, an enterprise chat tool owned by US business software giant Salesforce, filed a complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of bundling with Office software. Since then, Microsoft has been considering compromise measures to address the concerns of EU antitrust agencies, people familiar with the matter said last year.
As early as 2020, Slack questioned Microsoft, which said that Microsoft’s integration of Teams into Office office software was an unfair market practice. In 2017, as the enterprise collaboration chat tool market heated up, Microsoft developed Teams to enter the market.
On Thursday, the European Commission said that in addition to Slack, other companies have also lodged complaints about Microsoft’s actions.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said that on the issue of Microsoft’s bundling of Teams, the European Commission has received complaints from many companies, including Slack, and the European Commission is currently evaluating these complaints, so it cannot provide further comments.
Salesforce, the parent company of Slack, did not comment on Microsoft’s proposed compromise.
According to sources, the European Commission is seeking feedback from competitors of Microsoft Teams on Microsoft’s proposed compromise plan.
It is worth mentioning that in terms of anti-monopoly, Microsoft has already been an “old frequenter” of the EU. In the past ten years, Microsoft has been fined 2.2 billion euros for violating the EU’s anti-monopoly laws, Microsoft’s illegal behavior is mainly to bundle two or more of its products with each other.
