Microsoft faces anticompetitive probe linked to Teams in EU
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The European Commission (EC) said it has opened a formal investigation to check if Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) may have breached EU competition rules by tying or bundling its chat and video app Teams to its suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
In July 2020, Slack Technologies â the workspace messaging app owned by Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) â filed a complaint alleging that Microsoft illegally tied Teams to its dominant productivity suites.
The EC said it is concerned that Microsoft may be abusing and defending its market position in productivity software by restricting competition in the European Economic Area (EEA) for communication and collaboration products.
The EC added that it is worried that the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant may grant Teams a distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice on whether or not to include access to that product when they subscribe to their productivity suites and may have limited the interoperability between its productivity suites and competing products.
"Remote communication and collaboration tools like Teams have become indispensable for many businesses in Europe. 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. This is why we are investigating whether Microsoftâs tying of its productivity suites with Teams may be in breach of EU competition rules," said Margrethe Vestager, executive vice-president in charge of competition policy.
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