Microsoft swerves EU fine by unbundling Teams from software suites

(Sharecast News) - Tech giant Microsoft has avoided a fine from the European Union after it made commitments to address competition concerns over how it packaged its Teams platform, officials said on Friday. As part of the deal agreed with the European Commission, Microsoft will sell a version of its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites without Teams at a reduced price.

EU regulators opened an investigation after a complaint in July 2023 by Slack Technologies, now owned by Salesforce, accused Microsoft of abusing its market dominance by bundling the video conferencing software with its other applications.

A preliminary ruling found Microsoft gave Teams an undue competitive advantage and restricted competition in the market for cloud-based communication and collaboration products when bundled with applications including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

As a result, Microsoft unbundled Teams from Office 365 after the EU investigation started, but this was found to be insufficient by regulators.

EU competition chief Teresa Ribera said the new commitments "open up competition in the crucial market for videoconferencing and collaboration software".

Reporting by Frank Prenesti for Sharecast.com