Syed Imran Haider 
On Tuesday, the European Union leveled accusations of breach of antitrust rules against Microsoft. The European Commission, which is the European Union’s executive arm, sent a Statement of Objections.
It is usually sent to companies to inform them about the concerns against them. Microsoft bundles its Office and Team products, which was labeled as ‘abusive’.
The Statement
The European Commission stated that it had informed the software giant about its breach of antitrust rules in the EU.
It said that the company had bundled its popular productivity apps that are part of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 with its communication and collaboration product Teams.
It considers this a breach of antitrust rules. Once the company responds, the commission can decide if there has been an infringement.
It can then impose a ban on the products and impose a fine on the company, which would be 10% of its worldwide revenue.
In order to assuage antitrust concerns in the European Union, Microsoft had taken preemptive action. The company had unbundled Microsoft 365 and Teams.
However, the Commission stated that the changes did not address its concerns properly. It also added that further changes would have to be made to ensure competition in the market.
The Response
According to Microsoft, it would make an effort to find a way to address the additional concerns that the Commission has put forward.
Microsoft’s president and vice chair, Brad Smith, issued a statement on Tuesday. He said that they were already making an effort to facilitate interoperability and had also unbundled Teams.
He asserted that they had now gotten additional clarity and would use it to take further steps to address the issues. The EU had first begun its investigation into the firm in July 2023.
It had received a complaint from Slack, a chat service owned by Salesforce, which is a Teams’ competitor. The investigation is still ongoing.
The Concerns
The commission had first become concerned about Microsoft’s practices back in 2019. This was when the company had bundled Teams with its SaaS (software as a service) applications, like Office.
The commission highlighted that Microsoft’s professional productivity applications have helped the company gain worldwide dominance in the SaaS market.
According to EU regulators, Microsoft’s decision to bundle Teams with its SaaS productivity applications had taken away its customers’ choice.
It no longer gave them a choice to acquire access to Teams, which benefits the latter. Furthermore, the interoperability limitations also worked in favor of the tech giant.
This refers to the ability of two or multiple systems working together. To put it simply, Microsoft’s offerings do not work well with Teams’ rivals.
Therefore, the commission said that the conduct had an impact on the competition in the market, with Teams’ competitors struggling.
Moreover, it was against the interest of customers in the European Economic Area (EEA).
