EC Accuses Microsoft Of Antitrust Violations For Bundling Teams

(RTTNews) - The European Commission has accused software giant Microsoft (MSFT) of breaching competition rules.

The European Commission informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the company has breached EU antitrust rules by tying its communication and collaboration product Teams to its popular productivity applications included in its suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365.

Teams is a cloud-based communication and collaboration tool offered by Microsoft. It offers functionalities such as messaging, calling, video meetings, and file sharing, and brings together Microsoft's and third-party workplace tools and other applications.

The European Union opened an antitrust probe of Microsoft's bundling of Teams back in July 2023.

In a statement, the Commission said that it "is concerned that, since at least April 2019, Microsoft has been tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications, thereby restricting competition on the market for communication and collaboration products and defending its market position in productivity software and its suites-centric model from competing suppliers of individual software."

According to the Commission, the bundling might have granted Teams a "distribution advantage by not giving customers the choice whether or not to acquire access to Teams when they subscribe to their SaaS productivity applications."

The regulator sees the conduct may have prevented Teams' rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area.