The EU Commission is examining whether the group is concentrating too much power in its products. Now it is said that customers could choose a cheaper Office version in the future – without the chat and video software Teams.
Because of an impending fine from the European Union, Microsoft is terminating the integration of its Teams video conferencing program with the Office software. This step was intended to allay the concerns of the competition authorities wrote Nanna-Louise Linde, the US software giant’s manager responsible for working with European governments, in a blog post on Thursday. In the future, customers could choose an Office version without teams that is cheaper than the one with teams. She also promised updates to Office to improve the integration of competing Teams products.
The EU announced that it had taken note of the measures. She declined further comment on the subject. The action was triggered by an official investigation by the EU competition authority of Microsoft into a possible impediment to competition. The investigations started with a complaint from the US company Salesforce, which has a team rival in its program, Slack.
Microsoft had to pay competition fines totaling 2.2 billion dollars in the EU in recent years because of the dovetailing of various products. Teams was added to the Office suite in 2017 as a free feature. It superseded the previously popular Skype program, which also belonged to Microsoft. During the pandemic, video conferencing systems such as Teams or Zoom quickly gained popularity. According to Microsoft, existing business customers will receive teams for 24 euros per year in the future. New customers would have to pay 60 euros for this program as a single application. Companies that previously had Office including Teams could choose to use the office programs at a price discount without the video conferencing software. The changes will come into effect on October 1st in the EU and Switzerland.