US software company Microsoft has avoided a fine from the European Commission for abusing its dominant market position in connection with the Teams app. She has agreed with the commission on commitments she has promised to fulfill. The EU executive did not like the fact that the company is tying its tool for chatting and video calls Teams with the Office suite of office programs. Microsoft has now promised a clear separation of the application from office tools such as Word, Excel and Outlook, the European Commission said in a statement.
“The European Commission has made commitments by Microsoft on addressing EU competition concerns in the context of its popular Teams team collaboration platform. These commitments will henceforth be legally binding under EU antitrust rules,” the commission informed. “The commitments relate to the commission’s concerns related to binding Microsoft Teams to popular Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, which are included with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 for business customers,” she said.
The U.S. company has promised, among other things, to make versions of these packages available without Teams and at a reduced price, allow customers with long-term licenses to switch to packages without the Teams app or allow customers to move their data from Teams to facilitate the use of competing solutions. “These commitments will help restore fair competition and open the market for other communication tool providers in Europe,” the commission added. The liabilities will remain in force for seven years.
Microsoft complained about the operator of the work communication application Slack due to the binding of products in 2020. It was bought by the American company Salesforce. In July 2023, the EC announced that, based on the findings of the time, Microsoft had begun investigating. Subsequently, in 2024, it said Microsoft’s procedure was perhaps illegal and that the firm would have to offer more concessions to keep its business in line with European laws.
