At Last, Everyone Gets The Choice To Unbundle Teams
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For those not keen on Microsoft Teams, help is in hand - European Union requirements to unbundle the software from Office 365 will be implemented globally.
During the pandemic lockdowns, Microsoft hoped Teams would zoom past competing collaboration tools. But in 2020, Slack complained that bundling Teams into Office 365 licenses was unfair, leading to a European antitrust investigation.
[...] The move leaves users with the option to carry on as normal, remove Teams from licenses and enjoy a small discount, or buy it as a standalone product.
That appears to be good news for Slack, Zoom, and others that are looking to lure Microsoft customers to their own collaboration apps. However, Google told us last year that Microsoft's concession of unbundling Teams from Office 365 in the EEA was "too little, too late" as the tool had already amassed million of users.
The Coalition for Fair Software, a lobby group believed to be backed by Google and AWS, pointed out that the change made to Teams by Microsoft comes amid growing interest from competition regulators in the vendor's wider licensing policies with regard to Office 365 and Azure.
In a statement, executive director Ryan Triplette, said: "By simply extending the changes offered in Europe in August 2023, this announcement pays lip service to fair competition but leaves interoperability and licensing restrictions in place that prevent true customer choice. Despite the shortcomings of the terms, they demonstrate that Microsoft is capable of making changes when held accountable by regulators.
"Microsoft's restrictive software licensing practices extend well beyond Teams and are used to drive up costs and lock in customers to their products throughout the cloud stack, from Azure to security offerings. We urge all regulators, including the US Federal Trade Commission, to take action to address these practices and improve consumer choice."
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