Microsoft is facing accusations of violating competition rules by bundling the videoconferencing application Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 office suites. In a Statement of Objections sent to the company, the European Commission stated that Microsoft had unfairly used its dominant position in the software market to promote its own chat and videoconferencing tools over competitors’ products.
Teams was linked to popular applications like Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook without any additional cost, giving customers no choice in whether they wanted access to Teams when they subscribed to these applications. Additionally, there were concerns about limitations on interoperability between Microsoft’s services and competitors of Teams.
The investigation was initiated in July 2023 after complaints from companies like Slack (now owned by Salesforce) and Alfaview. Microsoft made changes to how Teams was distributed in response, but the Commission believes that these changes are not sufficient to address all competition concerns.
This latest development in the investigation could potentially lead to hefty fines for Microsoft, which could amount to up to 10 percent of their global turnover. Microsoft will have the opportunity to respond to the allegations, and there is currently no deadline set for the completion of the investigation.
