Microsoft might evade EU antitrust fine by isolating Teams from Office

By separating the company’s chat service application, Teams, from Office, Microsoft will most likely avoid a hefty fine from Brussels.

Back in 2020, corporate communication platform Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission. The Salesforce-owned company claimed that Microsoft had an unfair advantage by bundling chat and video app Teams with its Office subscription service.

The European Commission launched an investigation into Microsoft for unfair competition practices.

In 2023, German competitor alfaview filed a similar complaint with the European Commission. “Tying Teams with the other applications in the Microsoft 365 suite creates a multipolar distribution advantage for the US group,” Managing Director and founder Niko Fostiropoulos said in a statement.

Later that year, Microsoft decided to remove Teams from its Office bundle. The Redmond-based tech company started selling Office without Teams for €2 ($2.24) less than Office with the chat app included. Users could also subscribe to a standalone version or add-on of Teams for €5 ($5.61) per month. When competitors complained that the offer wasn’t sufficient, Microsoft widened the price gap between the two products.

EU regulators are likely to agree with Microsoft’s measures, Reuters reports. The press agency spoke to three sources familiar with the matter.

The European Commission is likely to seek feedback from Microsoft’s competitors and customers before making a final decision in the coming months.

Microsoft introduced its chat service Teams in 2016. A year later, Microsoft added Teams to Office 365 for free, replacing the enterprise version of Skype. In 2021, Teams was integrated with Windows 11 by default.