The European Commission is opening a formal antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s bundling of its Teams software with its Office productivity suite.
The investigation comes after a complaint by Slack, a rival communication app, which alleges that Microsoft is using its dominance in the office productivity market to unfairly promote Teams.
Slack argues that Microsoft is “illegally tying” Teams to Office, making it difficult for businesses to choose other communication apps. Slack also says that Microsoft is “force installing” Teams on millions of devices and making it difficult for businesses to remove it.
The European Commission will now investigate whether Microsoft’s bundling of Teams is in breach of EU competition law. If the Commission finds that Microsoft is breaking the law, it could impose fines of up to 10% of Microsoft’s global turnover.
Microsoft has responded to the EU’s complaint. “We respect the European Commission’s work on this case and take our own responsibilities very seriously,” says Microsoft spokesperson Robin Koch. “We will continue to cooperate with the Commission and remain committed to finding solutions that will address its concerns.”
The sources for this piece include an article in TheVerge.
