Microsoft was accused by Slack of bundling its two services. Slack referred the Microsoft’s act as an anti-competitive move. Now in order to prevent another antitrust investigation by the EU, Microsoft has decided to cease the bundling of two services. it means that Teams remote software will no longer support the office productivity suite.
As per the sources, the company will now offer two different purchase offers. Users can access Office with or without Teams installed. How this will be done is a question. Furthermore, it is unclear whether this step by Microsoft satisfies Slack or not. Since Slack has asked the EU to mandate that Microsoft sells Teams independently of its Office suite.
We are aware of our obligations in the EU as a significant technological company. We are open to practical solutions that address the commission’s concerns and provide customers with excellent service, and we continue to cooperate with the agency in its investigation, adds Microsoft.
The History of antitrust allegations on Microsoft
Well, this is not the first-ever regulatory issue for Microsoft. After being accused of abusing its dominating position to push its Internet Explorer browser by bundling it with Windows, Microsoft reached a settlement with the European Commission in 2009. It calls for the company to start giving customers a choice of browsers. Microsoft was penalized €561 million by the commission in 2013 nevertheless for breaking its guarantee.
Regulators have been closely monitoring Microsoft’s efforts to buy Activision Blizzard for $69 billion recently because they are concerned that this would give Microsoft a monopoly in the gaming sector. The company’s ten-year agreement to offer Call of Duty games on Nintendo platforms made an effort to allay some of these worries, though. An unsuccessful attempt was evidenced by the CMA’s report on April 26 stating that the deal is being blocked.
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