Microsoft may have breached EU antitrust rules by tying its Teams collaboration product to applications in its suites for businesses Office 365 and Microsoft 365, the EU said.
The Commission concern is that, since at least April 2019, Microsoft has been tying its cloud-based communication and collaboration tool Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications – cloud computing in which the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all the physical and software resources used by the application.
By doing this, the Commission said Microsoft was 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.
The EU executive is particularly 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 SaaS productivity applications. This advantage may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams’ competitors and Microsoft’s offerings. The conduct may have prevented Teams’ rivals from competing, and in turn innovating, to the detriment of customers in the European Economic Area.
“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,” said EC vice-president Margrethe Vestager: “And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation on these markets.”
If confirmed, these practices would infringe Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position.
Following the Commission’s opening of proceedings in July 2023, Microsoft introduced changes in the way it distributes Teams. In particular, Microsoft started offering some suites without Teams. 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.
Th Commission stresses that the sending of a Statement of Objections does not prejudge the outcome of an investigation.
More information on the investigation will be available on the Commission’s competition website, in the public case register under the case numbers AT.40721 (Microsoft Teams) and AT.40873 (Microsoft Teams II).
