On Thursday, European Union regulators began to investigate Microsoft for potential anti-competitive conduct due to the company's bundling of its video and chat app Teams with other Office products. The inquiry was initiated when Slack, Microsoft's competitor, registered a complaint with the European Commission in 2020.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, has opened an antitrust investigation into Microsoft's practice of packaging its video and chat app Teams with other Office products, the first probe into Microsoft in a decade. The Commission believes that these practices could be anti-competitive as they limit customers' choices and prevent other communication and collaboration tools from competing.
If Microsoft is found guilty of violating EU competition rules, it may face a fine of up to 10% of its total global annual turnover.
The Commission voiced concerns that Microsoft might be giving Teams an unfair advantage by not allowing customers the option of not including access to the app when subscribing to their productivity suites, and by limiting the interoperability between its productivity suites and competing offerings.
In 2020, concerns about Microsoft's competitiveness arose when Slack, now owned by Salesforce, filed a complaint with the EU over Microsoft tying its Teams service to its popular productivity packages like Microsoft 365, preventing users from removing it. In response, a Microsoft spokesperson stated that they respect the European Commission's work on the case and continue to be dedicated to finding suitable solutions. This isn't the first time that the EU has investigated Microsoft's practices, as an investigation in 2009 also occurred in regard to the Redmond tech giant's bundling of Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system. However, after Microsoft supplied remedies to the EU, the issue was resolved. In more recent news, Microsoft's proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard was also analyzed by the EU due to the possible effects it could have on the console and cloud gaming markets. After Microsoft presented remedies to the EU, the deal was then finalized in May. CNBC's Silvia Amaro and Ryan Browne aided in this report.
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