Slack says Microsoft is back up to old bad tricks, “browser war” style

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Slack-the now-nearly ubiquitous, purple work-chatting platform-has filed a formal complaint alleging that tech titan Microsoft is unlawfully abusing its power to squeeze newer rivals out of the market-almost the exact same accusations Microsoft infamously faced 20 years ago.

San Francisco-based Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission detailing "Microsoft's illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law," the company said today.

The complaint centers on Microsoft Teams, the company's chat and video-conference platform. Teams is a competitor product not only to Slack but also to popular conference service Zoom, Google's Meet and chat services, and other video services. Slack alleges that the way Microsoft bundles Teams into its distribution of Office-widely used enterprise software such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel-gives Microsoft an unfair advantage against the competition.

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