Microsoft to Stop Including Teams With Office to Avoid Antitrust Probe

Microsoft has agreed to stop bundling its Microsoft Teams app with its Office suite to avoid an EU antitrust investigation, the Financial Times is reporting today. Slack, the main competitor to Microsoft Teams had previously filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft before the European Commission.

Back in 2020, Slack claimed that Microsoft including Teams with Office was anti-competitive. “Microsoft is reverting to past behavior. They created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behavior during the ‘browser wars’”, said David Schellhase, General Counsel at Slack three years ago.

According to two sources familiar with Microsoft’s decision, the company is now planning to give companies purchasing Office the choice to get Teams or not. However, “the mechanism on how to do this remains unclear,” the report reads.

In just six years, Microsoft Teams has become a true juggernaut in the enterprise communication space, and the app crossed 280 million active users earlier this year. Slack, on the other hand, had over 10 million active users back in 2019 and the company hasn’t updated this number since then. The app was acquired by Salesforce for $27.7 billion back in 2020, which was when the popularity of Slack, Teams, and Zoom exploded due to the pandemic.

In a statement shared with The Financial Times, Microsoft said it’s ready to address concerns from the European Commission. “We are mindful of our responsibilities in the EU as a major technology company. We continue to engage cooperatively with the commission in its investigation and are open to pragmatic solutions that address its concerns and serve customers well,” the company said.