Microsoft will sell the Teams application separately from the Office products, worldwide, the American IT giant announced on Monday, reports Reuters, quoted by Agerpres.
Microsoft Teams. PHOTO Shutterstock
The announcement comes after Microsoft offers the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 family of products without Microsoft Teams for customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) from October 1, 2023, in an attempt to avoid a possible antitrust fine.
The European Commission is investigating Microsoft's decision to link Office to Teams, following a complaint by Salesforce, which owns rival communication and productivity app Slack.
Added to Office 365 for free in 2017, Teams became popular during the pandemic thanks to its video conferencing function.
“We respect the EU's reaction”
But rivals argue that product pooling gives Microsoft an unfair advantage. The company started selling the two products separately in the European Economic Area (European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway) from October 1, 2023.
“To ensure clarity for customers, we are extending the steps we took last year to separate Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers around the world. By doing so, we comply with the EU's response by providing multinational companies with more flexibility when they want to standardize their procurement across different geographies“, said a Microsoft spokesperson.
Over the past decade, Microsoft has received €2.2 billion in EU fines for bundling two or more products.
