Microsoft to Separate Teams in Europe to Avert EU Antitrust Penalty
Microsoft has announced that it will fulfill its promise made in April by separating Teams from Office 365 and Microsoft 365 productivity suites in the European Union. This decision comes after a three-year dispute initiated by Slack, who filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft, alleging that including Teams in these packages was unlawful and that Microsoft was preventing users from uninstalling the program.
The tech giant finally agreed to spin off Teams from its productivity solutions earlier this year, but said it was “unclear” how that would happen. Then, in July, the European Commission appeared to have had enough of waiting and launched an investigation into whether Teams’ bundling with productivity packages violated EU competition rules.
Now it seems that Microsoft is trying to play nice and get the European Commission off the hook. “We recognize our responsibility as a major technology supplier in supporting a healthy competitive environment. We appreciate the clarity that has come to a number of concerns in the extensive and constructive discussions with the European Commission,” Nanna-Louise Linde, Microsoft’s vice president for European affairs, said in a blog post announcing the decision. “To be clear, we believe it is important that we take reasonable steps to address these concerns. We do not do this in the sense that this necessarily resolves all of the Commission’s or competitors’ concerns, but we believe this is a constructive step that can begin to lead to immediate and significant changes in the market.”
Well, now is the when and the how. From October 1, Microsoft 365 and Office 365 should be available for 2 euros less per month or 24 euros for the whole year for customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. Teams should also be available individually for 5 euros per month or 60 euros per year. Anyone who previously purchased a productivity package can continue to pay for the full package or remove Teams replacement plans. However, Microsoft claims that any front-line workers or small business owners in the region will still have the option to include Teams in their purchase.
Microsoft also says it will create additional support resources to direct developers to public APIs and answer user questions, such as how to migrate their data from Teams. In addition, Microsoft is “developing a new method” to use its programs in competing applications.
