Microsoft Faces European Antitrust Investigation Over Bundling of Teams Software

livemint.com:

The European Union opened an antitrust investigation into whether Microsoft is abusing its dominant position by bundling its Teams videoconferencing app with its popular Office productivity software, marking the first formal EU probe of the software giant in more than a decade. The bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, said it is concerned that Microsoft may be giving Teams an unfair advantage by not allowing customers to choose whether access to the product is included when they subscribe to the company’s productivity software.

Microsoft may also have limited interoperability between its productivity suites and other products that compete with Teams, the commission said. Microsoft said it respects the European Commission’s work on the case and takes its responsibilities very seriously.

“We will continue to cooperate with the commission and remain committed to finding solutions that will address its concerns," a spokesman said. The investigation stems from a 2020 complaint lodged by business messaging app Slack Technologies, which alleged that Microsoft was forcing companies to install Teams and blocking its removal.

Slack is now owned by the business-software company Salesforce. German videoconferencing company Alfaview filed a similar complaint last week, saying Microsoft’s bundling practices give its Teams software a competitive advantage that is “difficult to catch up without intervention by antitrust authorities." Microsoft’s antitrust battles in both Washington and Brussels defined the early days of enforcement in the digital era.

The U.S. government sued the company in the 1990s for allegedly using the dominance of its Windows software to squash competition in the market for internet browsers, in a case