It’s been a while since Microsoft was hit with an official antitrust charge in the EU, but the European Commission just tagged the US-based software company with anticompetitive violation due to its practice of bundling its enterprise chat service Teams with its industry dominant productivity suite, Office 365.
While Teams and Office 365 are a far less ubiquitous offering than Windows and Internet Explorer were back in the day, the EU has found that the pairing offered Microsoft a similar illegal advantage in the market as it did 15 years with pre bundled operating system products
The European Commission has informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has breached EU antitrust rules by tying its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular productivity applications included in its suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365
European Commisson
In an attempt to head off this exact regulatory objection, Microsoft unbundled Teams from Office 365 in the EU last year while offering the enterprise chat platform as its own separate application worldwide. Despite the preemptive move from Microsoft to head off an anticompetitive charge, the EU seems still seems concerned over interoperability and third party accessibility.
We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses. If confirmed, Microsoft’s conduct would be illegal under our competition rules. Microsoft now has the opportunity to reply to our concerns.”
Margrethe Vestager
While the EU’s antitrust objections with Microsoft seem a bit tenuous this time around following their unbundling move last year, the company could find itself with a potential fine of up to 10 percent of its global Teams revenue for the years it’s been found in violation
For its part, Microsoft has been relatively amenable to the EUs concerns and appears to working on addressing the antitrust charges before they become a full blown fineable offense, according to the Financial Times.
Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the Commission’s remaining concerns,”
Brad Smith, Microsoft President
