Microsoft avoids EU fine after Slack complained about Teams bundling

Microsoft has avoided a fine from the European Commission after being charged with EU antitrust violations for bundling its Teams app with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. The European Commission has accepted commitments from Microsoft to address competition concerns related to Microsoft Teams, following an anti-competitive complaint filed by Slack in July 2020. Microsoft has committed to make available versions of its Office suites without Teams and at a reduced price, allow customers with long-term licenses to switch to suites without Teams, provide interoperability for key functionalities between communication and collaboration tools that compete with Teams and certain Microsoft products, and allow customers to move their data out of Teams to facilitate the use of competing solutions. The commitments from Microsoft will be enforced by EU lawmakers for seven years, with the interoperability and data portability ones in force for 10 years. The decision aims to open up competition in the crucial videoconferencing, chat, and collaboration tools market, ensuring that businesses can freely choose the communication and collaboration product that best suits their needs.