Microsoft Is Unbundling Teams From Office In Europe To Address Regulator Concerns
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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Microsoft will start unbundling Teams from its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 productivity suites in EU markets in October. The move is designed to avoid further antitrust scrutiny, after the European Commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into Microsoft's bundling of its Teams software with the Office productivity suite last month.
Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission's investigation continues and we cooperate with it," says Nanna-Louise Linde, VP of Microsoft european government affairs. These changes will impact our Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland."
[...] Alongside the Teams unbundling, Microsoft is also planning to improve its documentation on interoperability with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 for rivals like Zoom and Slack to integrate into Exchange, Outlook, and Teams. Microsoft will also allow rivals to host Office web applications within their competing apps, just like how Microsoft does in Teams.
Microsoft will now have to wait on EU regulators to decide whether its unbundling of Teams from Office suites in EU markets is enough. We believe these changes balance the interests of our competitors with those of European business customers, providing them with access to the best possible solutions at competitive prices," says Linde. We also recognize that we are still in the early stages of the European Commission's formal investigation. We will continue to engage with the Commission, listen to concerns in the marketplace, and remain open to exploring pragmatic solutions that benefit both customers and developers in Europe."
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