Microsoft is I don’t have any problem anymore Please cooperate with the European Commission at least as a team. committee acceptable The company made the changes and compromises in response to concerns that Microsoft would merge its Teams collaboration platform with other apps.
The antitrust saga began several years ago when Slack filed antitrust charges against Microsoft, accusing it of illegally including its business chat rival in the popular Office suite. The committee will begin a formal investigation into the matter in 2023 and will determine in 2024 whether Microsoft actually violated antitrust laws.
“Microsoft may have given Teams a distribution advantage by not offering customers the option to access Teams when they subscribe to SaaS productivity applications,” the panel said at the time. “This advantage may have been further enhanced by limited compatibility between Teams competitors and Microsoft products.” The company faces a fine equivalent to 10% of its annual global revenue.
Even before the commission announced its preliminary findings, Microsoft had removed Teams from Office 365 and the Microsoft 365 office suite in the EU. However, the committee considered the changes made to be “insufficient to address the problem.” As a result, Microsoft has made several commitments to avoid fines, including offering versions of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teams to European customers.
These editions are sold at “significantly reduced prices.” The company also promised not to offer discounts on tickets or packages that include equipment. Microsoft offers Teams competitors “strong compatibility” with some of its products and services, allowing them to integrate Office applications into their products. Additionally, European customers can now extract messaging data from Teams and use it with competing services.
The committee piloted the commitments in May and June of this year. In response to the group testing results, Microsoft increased the price difference between Microsoft 365 and Office 365 with and without Teams by an additional 50%. Additionally, if you update your group settings in the Messages app, you should check your group settings without Teams.
“Microsoft’s commitments are valid for seven years, except that interoperability and data portability obligations are valid for ten years,” the committee wrote. The trustees will monitor Microsoft’s performance and ensure that Microsoft continues to faithfully meet its obligations during this period.
(Translation tag)Microsoft
