Microsoft is under the EU radar once again for allegedly breaking antitrust rules. The European Union on Tuesday accused Microsoft of breaching antitrust rules with the “abusive” bundling of its Teams and Office products.
Reportedly, The European Commission informed Microsoft that the U.S. tech giant has been “restricting competition” by bundling Teams with core office productivity applications such as Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
Microsoft Office faces allegations
Last year in an effort to quash antitrust concerns by the EU, the tech giant had unbundled Teams from Microsoft 365. However, the European Commission disagreed and explained that the changes were “insufficient to address its concerns.”
“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,” the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a Statement of Objections. It looks like this ‘Statement of Objection’ is sent to inform companies of concerns raised against them.
“In particular, the Commission is concerned that Microsoft may have granted Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications,” EU regulators explained in the ‘Statement of Objections’.
In 2022, Microsoft had upgraded its Teams feature after users’ ‘overwhelming’ request. It looks like the EU regulators highlighted that the tech giant’s advantage seems to have worsened by limitations of the ability of making two or more systems to work together. The collaboration between Microsoft’s offerings and Teams is expected to have an undue advantage over competitors.
What’s next
Reportedly, in case the commission decides that an infringement has taken place once companies have responded, it can ban the conduct and fine Microsoft up to 10 per cent of its global revenue. The EU has opened its investigation into Microsoft. The investigation is expected to remain open.
According to Reuters, “Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, said in a statement Tuesday.
Furthermore, on Tuesday Microsoft said that it would work to find solutions to address the commission’s additional concerns.
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