Microsoft splits Teams and Office after being monitored for antitrust law violations

Microsoft, a major US tech company, announced on Monday that it will split sales of the chat/video application “Teams” from the company's office software “Office” on a global scale. This move is in response to surveillance under the Antimonopoly Act so far by the European Union (EU) and other regulators, and it also has the purpose of avoiding the possibility of fines under the Antimonopoly Act.

Teams was added to the Office 365 suite for free in 2017, and quickly became a popular communication and collaboration tool among business users. However, competitors such as Slack and other apps under the Salesforce umbrella argue that Microsoft's bundling Teams with Office is unfair competition, and are fighting back.

Regulators such as the EU have been investigating Microsoft about this act since 2020, when Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission. Microsoft's spin-off move is seen as a compromise against pressure from regulators, and also an attempt to avoid severe penalties that may be faced in the future.

In an interview, a Microsoft spokesperson stated, “In order to ensure clarity for customers, we will develop the steps implemented in the European Economic Area and Switzerland last year, and M365 and O365 Teams will be spun off to customers around the world.” The move also increases flexibility when multinational companies standardize cross-regional sourcing and responds to feedback from the European Commission.

According to the proposal announced by Microsoft, the Teams application will not be included in the new Microsoft 365 and Office 365 commercial suites after 4/1. At the same time, Microsoft will provide new Teams products for corporate customers who need to use Teams alone. For new business customers, the price of Office without Teams varies depending on the product, but prices for Teams standalone products have also been announced.

Microsoft has taken a step towards spin-off, but analysts see that this may not be enough to completely avoid antitrust law violations from regulators such as the European Union (EU). Microsoft is likely to face further criticism from competitors and scrutiny from regulators in the coming months.

It is worth noting that Microsoft has been fined a large amount of money by the EU for acts such as product bundling for the past 10 years. If found guilty of violating antitrust laws this time, the company will be fined up to 10% of global annual sales.