Microsoft: Europe opens antitrust investigation against Microsoft, here’s why

The European Union (EU) has announced it is opening an antitrust investigation into Microsoft’s tying of its Teams software with its Office suite of apps. This is reportedly the first antitrust investigation against Microsoft in the EU for nearly 15 years.

The European Commission will now investigate whether “Microsoft may have breached EU competition rules by tying or bundling its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365.”
The commission is concerned that Microsoft may be “abusing and defending its market position in productivity software by restricting competition in the European Economic Area for communication and collaboration 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,” said Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust commissioner.
“This is why we are investigating whether Microsoft’s tying of its productivity suites with Teams may be in breach of EU competition rules,” Vestager added.
What is the case
On 14 July 2020, Slack Technologies, Inc, first filed a complaint against Microsoft, alleging that the tech giant illegally tied Teams to its dominant productivity suites. It also said that Microsoft is “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”

This was around the time when remote working started to become a norm and Microsoft reportedly saw an uptick in business.
“The coronavirus outbreak accelerated a shift to remote working as well as businesses’ transition to the cloud and the adoption of cloud-based software for communication and collaboration,” the commission said.
“The transition to the cloud has enabled the emergence of new market players and business models offering customers the ability to use multiple types of software from different providers, without the need to maintain an in-house data centre,” it added.
Microsoft hasn’t responded yet but reports said that the company offered a concession to the EU to stop bundling Teams with Office.