Microsoft will unlink its Teams chat and video app from its Office product and make it easier for rival products to work with its software, the US company said Thursday in a bid to avoid a potential EU antitrust fine.
The proposed changes came a month after the European Commission launched an investigation into Microsoft’s linking of Office and Teams following a complaint from Salesforce’s workspace messaging app Slack in 2020.
Microsoft’s provisional concessions could not allay the concerns. The European competition authority said on Thursday it had taken note of the company’s announcement and declined further comment.
Teams was added to Office 365 for free in 2017. It eventually replaced Skype for Business and gained popularity during the pandemic, thanks in part to video conferencing.
“Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will address these concerns in a meaningful way, even as the European Commission investigation continues and we work with it,” said Nanna-Louise Linde, Microsoft vice president for European public affairs. in a blog post.
She said the changes aim to address two of the EU’s concerns: “that customers should be able to choose a business suite without Teams for a lower price than the one that includes Teams, and that we should do more to facilitate interoperability between competing communications and collaboration solutions.” .” and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites”.
The changes, effective October 1, will apply in Europe and Switzerland.
Office without Teams will be sold at a lower price, €2 (nearly Rs. 180) less per month or €24 (nearly Rs. 2,160) per year to Microsoft’s top enterprise customers, who account for most of Microsoft’s commercial activities. represent the company in Europe.
New business customers can purchase Teams standalone and separately for €5 (nearly Rs. 450) per month or €60 (nearly Rs. 5,400) per year, while existing business customers who already have a suite with Teams can choose to purchase it. keep or move to a suite without Teams.
New support resources will be introduced to help customers and independent software vendors who want to remove data from Teams and use it in another product.
Microsoft will also develop a new method of hosting the Office web applications within competing apps and services, similar to what it is doing with Teams.
The stakes are high for the US tech giant, which has faced €2.2 billion (nearly Rs. 19,800 crore) in antitrust fines from the EU over the past decade for linking or bundling two or more products, but has since has sought a more conciliatory approach with regulators.
© Thomson Reuters 2023
