Microsoft announces global unbundling of Teams from Office Suites

Microsoft announced plans to separate its Teams platform from the popular Office suite in response to ongoing antitrust scrutiny Monday.

This policy expansion builds upon an initial implementation in Europe, to tackle concerns raised by the European Commission regarding possible market abuses.

In the past year, the European Commission initiated an investigation into Microsoft's business practices to assess whether the tech giant was using its market dominance unfairly by integrating Teams with its Office software suite.

The investigation was initiated because of claims that this bundling strategy provided Microsoft with an unfair edge over its rivals.

To address these concerns, Microsoft has implemented measures to distinguish Teams from its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites specifically for the European Economic Area and Switzerland starting from Oct. 1.

The European Commission responded positively to the decision, emphasizing the significance of granting multinational companies more flexibility in their purchasing choices across various regions.

Teams, a communication platform that provides messaging, video calls, and file-sharing capabilities, has experienced a surge in popularity, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic when remote work became widespread.

Microsoft is providing customers with greater flexibility in choosing their preferred collaboration tools by separating Teams from its cloud-based Office suites. This allows users to select the applications they prefer, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

The European Commission's investigation was prompted by a complaint filed in July 2020 by Slack, a U.S.-based startup and competitor to Teams, which has since been acquired by Salesforce.

There were also concerns raised about limitations on interoperability with competing products, which led to a closer examination of Microsoft's business practices.

A representative from Microsoft highlighted the company's dedication to providing clear information to customers. "To ensure clarity for our customers, we are expanding the measures we implemented last year to separate Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers worldwide," they stated.

Source: AFP