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The EU slaps Microsoft with a $2.4bn fine, leading to a separation of Teams and Office amidst a continuing antitrust case
Microsoft, already involved in several antitrust lawsuits and having accumulated a $2.4 billion penalty, could potentially face additional fines. To prevent this, the firm has chosen to offer its Teams applications independently from its Office suite.
Microsoft has declared its plan to globally market its chat and video application, Teams, independently from its Office suite. This decision follows a similar action taken half a year ago in Europe in response to possible EU anti-monopoly issues.
The European Commission has been scrutinizing Microsoft's packaging of Office and Teams since 2020, prompted by a grievance from Slack, a rival workspace communication application owned by Salesforce.
Initially introduced to Office 365 as a free feature in 2017, Teams saw a surge in popularity, especially during the pandemic, due to its video conferencing abilities, after taking the place of Skype for Business.
Critics contended that Microsoft's product bundling gave them an undue edge. As a result, Microsoft began offering Office and Teams as standalone products in the EU and Switzerland starting from August 31 of the previous year.
Microsoft has chosen to expand its global unbundling, based on customer feedback, to give multinational corporations greater purchasing freedom, as per a representative from the company.
Microsoft is rolling out new global commercial packages for Microsoft 365 and Office 365 that won't include Teams. Moreover, a separate Teams product for Enterprise clients will be provided in areas excluding the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland.
Starting April 1, clients have the option to either stick with their existing license agreements or move to the new plans.
Office, without Teams, will cost between $7.75 and $54.75 for fresh business clients, while Teams alone will be priced at $5.25. The charges can fluctuate based on the country and the currency.
Even though Microsoft has attempted to tackle anti-monopoly worries, their efforts might not be enough to evade possible accusations from the European Union. Competitors have voiced criticisms about the costs and interoperability of their messaging services with Office Web Applications.
Over the last ten years, Microsoft has been hit with antitrust penalties amounting to 2.2 billion Euros by the EU for packaging products together. If they are found to be in violation of antitrust laws again, they could be fined up to 10% of their yearly worldwide revenue.
(Incorporating information from various sources)
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Associated Reports
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