European Commission continues investigation against Microsoft over Teams bundling

The Commission sent a Statement of Objections to Microsoft, informing the company that it has reached the preliminary conclusion that Microsoft has abused its dominant position on the software market to unfairly favour its own chat and videoconferencing tools over competitors.

Microsoft linked Teams to well-known applications such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook at no extra cost. Customers were not given the choice of whether or not to gain access to Teams when they subscribed to those applications. There also appeared to be limitations on interoperability between Microsoft’s services and the products of Teams’ competitors.

After a complaint from competitor Slack

The Commission opened the investigation in July 2023 following a complaint from Slack, which has since been acquired by Salesforce. Alfaview also filed a similar complaint. Microsoft has since adjusted the distribution of Teams, but the Commission believes these changes are not sufficient to resolve all competition concerns.

The announcement marks a new step in an investigation that could lead to huge fines, up to 10 percent of global turnover. Microsoft will now have the opportunity to respond again. There is no deadline for completing the research.