Microsoft Will Unbundle Teams to Allay EU Antitrust Concerns

To address European Union (EU) antitrust concerns, Microsoft has announced its decision to separate its chat and videoconference service, Teams, from its Microsoft 365 productivity suite.

Starting from October 1 this year, Microsoft will offer packages without Teams, reducing the cost by 24 euros ($26) annually in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Swiss regions. Existing customers who already have a suite with Teams can choose between retaining their current package or moving to a version without the videoconferencing app.

Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365, had previously highlighted Teams as a central feature among its workplace-oriented app offerings, including Excel and Word. Launched in 2017, Teams gained prominence as it was used for workplace communication during the Covid-19 pandemic.

EU's Antitrust Investigation

This move follows the initiation of an antitrust investigation by EU regulators in July into Microsoft's practice of bundling Teams with other Office products, citing concerns of anti-competitive behavior.

This investigation marked the first EU antitrust inquiry into Microsoft in more than ten years. Rival Slack, owned by Salesforce, filed a 2020 complaint alleging competitiveness issues.

In a blog post, Microsoft said that its decision to unbundle Teams aims to address these concerns and increase customers' flexibility.

The move comes in response to two primary concerns raised during the investigation: the ability for customers to choose a business suite without Teams at a lower price and enhancing interoperability between rival communication and collaboration solutions and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites.

The tech company acknowledges the expectations of business customers for modern communication and collaboration capabilities within their work solutions.

Microsoft highlights its responsibility to foster a competitive environment and is willing to address concerns through meaningful changes that align with the European Commission's investigation.

New Support Resources

"To help address these concerns, we will create new support resources to better organize and point application developers to the existing and publicly available application programming interfaces (APIs) and extensibility in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 apps and services that connect with Teams," Microsoft said in a blog post.

"This will include new support resources to help address questions from customers and independent software vendors (ISVs), including providing additional content to explain how data can be removed from Teams and used in another solution."

These forthcoming changes include the unbundling of Teams, starting October 1, in the EEA and Switzerland, with a lower-priced offering available for enterprise customers.

Teams will remain available as a standalone option for new enterprise customers. Existing enterprise customers can retain their current suite or migrate to a version without Teams.

Additionally, Microsoft will enhance resources for interoperability and create mechanisms for third-party solutions to host Office web applications.

Microsoft emphasizes its commitment to balancing the interests of competitors and European business customers, and it said that it remains open to addressing concerns as the investigation unfolds.