Microsoft resolves European Union probe into Teams

By KELVIN CHAN LONDON AP European Union regulators have accepted Microsoft s proposed changes to Teams resolving a long-running antitrust inquiry that targeted the company s messaging and videoconferencing app Related Articles OpenAI reaches new agreement with Microsoft to change its corporate structure Home Showcase A grand home in Newton Thinking about getting an EV Here s why you need to move by Sept With Hyundai raid Trump s immigration crackdown runs into his push for foreign assets Wall Street coasts toward the finish of its best week in the last The European Commission mentioned in a comment Friday that Microsoft s final commitments to unbundle Teams from its Office system suite including further tweaks following a industry 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 regime affairs Nanna-Louise Linde disclosed in a report The Commission acting on a complaint filed by Slack Technologies accused Microsoft of possibly abusive practices after an assessment saying that it was tying the Teams app to its widely used Office business platform suite which includes Word Excel and Outlook Slack now owned by Salesforce makes popular workplace messaging tool Alfaview a German maker of videoconferencing tool also filed a separate complaint Microsoft responded by proposing to make its Office and Microsoft system 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 platform to work with Teams and for users to move their records to competing products Salesforce President Sabastian Niles noted the final decision sends a clear message that Microsoft s anticompetitive bundling of Teams has harmed businesses denied customers fair choice and resulted in plenty of years of lost competition Teresa Ribera the European Commission s executive vice-president for competition affairs stated the announcement opens up competition in this crucial arena 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