14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft could be facing new legal trouble in Europe, this time due to an investigation that could be aimed at the way the company is offering Microsoft Teams to customers.
A new report from Reuters reveals that the EU is currently “preparing the ground for an investigation,” as the antitrust watchdog wants to determine if Microsoft is indeed violating competition rules with Microsoft Teams.
As it turns out, the possible investigation is based on public criticism coming from Slack, which previously accused Microsoft of unfair practices by bundling Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365.
According to the said source, the European Union has now relaunched an inspection of these claims, as the regulators want to get more information before making a final decision on a possible investigation.
In a July 2020 announcement, Slack officially filed an EU competition complaint against Microsoft, accusing the software giant of violating competition laws.
“The complaint details Microsoft’s illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition in breach of European Union competition law. Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers,” the company said at that point.
Slack called for Microsoft to remove Teams from Microsoft Office, explaining that by enforcing it on customers who get the productivity suite, the company gets an unfair advantage in the fight against competitors, including Slack.
“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.’ Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to ensure Microsoft cannot continue to illegally leverage its power from one market to another by bundling or tying products,” David Schellhase, General Counsel at Slack, said in a press release back then.