Microsoft resolves European Union probe into Teams
LONDON AP European Union regulators have accepted Microsoft s proposed changes to Teams resolving a long-running antitrust review that targeted the company s messaging and videoconferencing app The European Commission revealed in a message Friday that Microsoft s final commitments to unbundle Teams from its Office platform suite including further tweaks following a realm test in May and June are enough to satisfy competition concerns The legally binding commitments will remain in force for up to years and allow the company to avoid a potentially hefty fine We appreciate the dialogue with the Commission that led to this agreement and we turn now to implementing these new obligations promptly and fully Microsoft s vice president of European ruling body affairs Nanna-Louise Linde reported in a report The Commission acting on a complaint filed by Slack Technologies accused Microsoft of possibly abusive practices after an inquiry saying that it was tying the Teams app to its widely used Office business program suite which includes Word Excel and Outlook Slack now owned by Salesforce makes popular workplace messaging program Microsoft responded by proposing to make its Office and Microsoft application packages available at a discount without Teams and to let customers switch to packages without Teams The company also promised to make it easier for rival application to work with Teams and for users to move their figures to competing products This day s decision therefore opens up competition in this crucial sphere and ensures that businesses can freely choose the communication and collaboration product that best suits their demands explained Teresa Ribera the European Commission s executive vice-president overseeing competition affairs The announcement comes a week after the Commission the -nation bloc s top antitrust authority fined Google nearly billion euros billion because its ad-tech business breached competition rules prompting President Donald Trump to threaten retaliation Source
