Microsoft to unbundle Teams from Office as European Union cites competitors considerations

Microsoft will unbundle its Teams communications from its well-liked Office suite in an try and assuage EU antitrust considerations, the corporate mentioned Thursday.

The European Commission launched the investigation in July to see whether or not the US tech big was “abusing and defending its market position” by bundling the software program collectively.

If the fee probe finds in opposition to Microsoft, the corporate may face a hefty effective or different ordered treatments.

In a bid to deal with the considerations, Microsoft will unbundle Teams from its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites within the European Economic Area and Switzerland from October 1, the corporate’s vp on European authorities affairs, Nanna-Louise Linde, mentioned.

Customers will now have the ability to purchase the software program with out Teams at a lower cost, she added.

“We are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooperate with it,” Linde wrote in a weblog put up.

Microsoft bundles Teams with its cloud-based Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites, which embody its well-liked Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Excel programmes.

Teams is a platform that permits customers to speak via messages, video calls and file sharing.

The set off for the fee’s probe was a July 2020 grievance from Slack, a US startup competitor to Teams which has since been purchased by the corporate Salesforce.

The fee had additionally expressed considerations that Microsoft could have restricted the interoperability between its productiveness suites and rival merchandise.

Microsoft will now make it simpler for rivals’ software program to work with the agency’s personal.

There isn’t any set deadline for the EU’s investigation to be accomplished.

“We will continue to engage with the commission, listen to concerns in the marketplace, and remain open to exploring pragmatic solutions that benefit both customers and developers in Europe,” Linde mentioned.