Microsoft Risks Huge Fine Over “Possibly Abusive” Bundling of Teams and Office
Freeman writes:
Microsoft may be hit with a massive fine in the European Union for "possibly abusively" bundling Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites for businesses.
On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings of an investigation into whether Microsoft's "suite-centric business model combining multiple types of software in a single offering" unfairly shut out rivals in the "software as a service" (SaaS) market.
"Since at least April 2019," the EC found, Microsoft's practice of "tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications" potentially restricted competition in the "market for communication and collaboration products."
[...] For Microsoft, the EC's findings are likely not entirely unexpected, although Tuesday's announcement must be disappointing. The company had been hoping to avoid further scrutiny by introducing some major changes last year. Most drastically, Microsoft began "offering some suites without Teams," the EC said, but even that wasn't enough to appease EU regulators.
[...] Microsoft will now be given an opportunity to defend its practices. If the company is unsuccessful, it risks a potential fine up to 10 percent of its annual worldwide turnover and an order possibly impacting how the leading global company conducts business.
In a statement to Ars, Microsoft President Brad Smith confirmed that the tech giant would work with the commission to figure out a better solution.
"Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the commission's remaining concerns," Smith said.
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