(CN) — The European Commission has chided Microsoft for bundling its videoconferencing platform Teams with its Office software suite, a move the regulator believes violates EU antitrust laws.
According to the commission, Microsoft's tying of the cloud-based Teams to its core Office software restricts competition for communications and productivity products.
"In particular, the commission is concerned that Microsoft may 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 software as a service (SaaS) productivity applications. This advantage may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams' competitors and Microsoft's offerings," the commission said in a statement. "The conduct may have prevented Teams' rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area."
The commission opened its investigation nearly a year ago, after complaints by Salesforce-owned Slack Technologies and Germany-based Alfaview. Tuesday's "statement of objections" marks the first step toward possibly fining Microsoft, which will have an opportunity to review the commission's findings and respond in writing and may also request a hearing into the matter.
If in the end the commission concludes antitrust violations occurred, it could fine Microsoft up to 10% of its annual global revenue — which topped $212 billion in 2022-2023.
For its part, Microsoft said it made changes last year to offer Office to EU customers without Teams bundled. But the commission said that isn't enough.
"The commission preliminarily finds that these changes are insufficient to address its concerns and that more changes to Microsoft's conduct are necessary to restore competition," the commission said in its statement.
"We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses. And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation on these markets," commission vice president for competition policy Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. "If confirmed, Microsoft’s conduct would be illegal under our competition rules."
The commission has no deadline to complete its investigation. Its action comes a day after it accused Apple of breaching its new digital competition rules and amid a major antitrust crackdown on Big Tech.
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