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Microsoft had previously offered some modifications including
unbundling Teams from its Office software suite in an attempt to
head off the antitrust probe shortly after it was opened by the
EU two years ago.
But those proposals didn't satisfy the European Commission, the
27-nation bloc’s top competition enforcer, which accused
Microsoft last year of potentially abusive behavior.
The Commission said Friday that it will now seek feedback on
fresh commitments Microsoft has made to resolve the competition
worries. That includes making the Office 365 and Microsoft 365
software packages available at a discount without Teams, and
letting customers switch between packages without Teams. The
company is also promising to make it easier for rival software
to work with Teams and for users to move their data from Teams
to to competing products.
The commission said in a press release that it “invites all
interested parties to submit their views" on Microsoft's
proposals. If everyone is satisfied, they would become legally
binding.
The Redmond, Wash.-based company is “hopeful” the Commission
will “in the following months adopt a final decision closing its
investigation," Microsoft s vice president in charge of European
government affairs, Nanna-Louise Linde, said in a blog post.
Microsoft's commitments would be in force for up to 10 years,
the Commission said. The company could incur fines worth up to
10% of its annual global revenues — which could run into tens of
billions of euros — if it fails to honor them
The Teams investigation dates back to 2020, when Slack
Technologies, which makes popular workplace messaging software,
filed a complaint.
Slack, owned by business software maker Salesforce, alleged that
Microsoft was abusing its market dominance to eliminate
competition — in violation of EU laws — by illegally combining
Teams with its Office suite, which includes Word, Excel and
Outlook.
Salesforce President Sabastian Niles said the latest
announcement “affirms that Microsoft’s anticompetitive practices
with Teams have harmed competition and require a binding,
enforceable, and effective remedy. We will carefully scrutinize
Microsoft’s proposed commitments.”
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AP Business Writer Kelvin Chan contributed from London.
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