The European Commission is opening a formal antitrust investigation against Microsoft over bundling its Teams software with its Office productivity suite.
Slack originally filed an anti-competitive complaint against Microsoft with the European Commission in July 2020, just months after a global pandemic began and the Microsoft Teams userbase started to grow rapidly.
Meanwhile, the European Commission will carry out an in-depth investigation into whether Microsoft may have breached EU competition rules by tying or bundling Microsoft Teams to its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 productivity suites.
“Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe,” explains Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president in charge of competition policy at the European Commission.
Vestager added: “We must therefore ensure that the markets for these products remain competitive, and companies are free to choose the products that best meet their needs.”
The official also highlighted that this “is why we are investigating whether Microsoft’s tying of its productivity suites with Teams may be in breach of EU competition rules.”
In response, Microsoft spokesperson Robin Koch said: “We respect the European Commission’s work on this case and take our own responsibilities very seriously.”
“We will continue to cooperate with the Commission and remain committed to finding solutions that will address its concerns,” Koch affirmed.
