Microsoft announced on Thursday that it will separate its Teams chat and video program from its Office product and make it simpler for competing goods to interact with its software. However, rivals claimed that Microsoft may need to take more steps to avoid a potential EU antitrust sanction.
The planned modifications came a month after the European Commission opened an investigation into Microsoft’s integration of Teams and Office as a result of a complaint made by Slack a rival workspace messaging software owned by Salesforce, in 2020. The actions Microsoft outlined on Thursday were a continuation of earlier compromises that had not been sufficient to allay regulatory worries. The EU competition enforcer acknowledged having read the company’s announcement but chose not to comment further. If the corporation doesn’t improve its offer, the Commission might file formal charges against it in the fall, individuals with knowledge of the situation told reporters last month. Teams was a free addition to Office 365 in 2017. Because of its video conferencing, it gradually took the position of Skype for Business and grew in popularity across the pandemic. Microsoft’s vice president for European government affairs, Nanna-Louise Linde, wrote in a blog post, “Today we are announcing proactive changes that we think will start to address these issues in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we collaborate with it. The customer should be able to choose a business suite without Teams at a lower price than those with Teams included, she said, and we should do more to facilitate interoperability between competing communication and collaboration solutions and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites. The modifications will be applicable in the EU and Switzerland starting on October 1. The majority of Microsoft’s commercial clients in Europe, known as the company’s core enterprise clients, will be able to convert to an Office edition without Teams for a cost that is two euros less per month than with Teams. Teams can be purchased solo and independently by new enterprise clients for 5 euros per month. Customers and independent software providers who want to remove data from Teams and use it in another product will have access to new support resources. Similar to what it does with Teams, Microsoft will also create a new strategy for hosting the Office web applications within rival services and applications. The owner of Slack, Salesforce, claimed it had nothing further to say. Rivals claim that as it is, Microsoft’s offer is unlikely to satisfy the EU antitrust authority. “This is pandering to the crowd. The Commission won’t likely enjoy it, in my opinion. The offer contains nothing incremental, according to a source in the market. The stakes are high for the American technology behemoth, which in the previous decade accrued 2.2 billion euros ($2.40 billion) in EU antitrust fines for linking or bundling two or more goods together but has subsequently pursued a more accommodative approach with authorities.
