The European Commission will soon announce new antitrust charges against Microsoft, according to Financial Times sources.

Citing “three people with knowledge of the move”, the publication revealed that the potential charges could come within “the next few weeks”.

The charges relate to its bundling of Microsoft Teams and Office.

The European Commission launched a formal investigation into Microsoft bundling the products after a 2020 complaint by collaborations competitor Slack.

Last year, Microsoft unbundled the platforms – first brought together in 2017 – in Europe.

Then, in April, the enterprise tech juggernaut took the practice worldwide, referencing “feedback” from the European Commission.

In doing so, many suspected that Microsoft aimed to avoid the antitrust ruling.

Yet, EU officials still appear to have concerns that the organization has not gone far enough to enable fairness in the market.

To circumvent those concerns, Microsoft may make further concessions at the eleventh hour before the formal charge, which could derail the EU’s case.

As Microsoft potentially does so, market rivals are reportedly meeting with the European Commission this week to review the case.

That likely indicates that charges are in the making – as per the sources.

Microsoft’s Concessions Miss the Mark

Unbundling Teams and Office may impact new sales. However, the move is unlikely to affect existing customers – as they can continue renewing their current licensing deals.

Industry analyst Blair Pleasant, President of COMMFusion, raised this issue during a recent episode of UC Today’s Big News Show. She said:

Teams remains ubiquitous, and the pricing remains competitive, especially with potential discounts. Overall, it’s unlikely to be detrimental to Microsoft’s success.

Moreover, Microsoft only started to make these concessions when it reached a monopoly-like market share – with Teams currently boasting 320 million monthly active users worldwide.

Some have also noted that it remains tricky to port data from Teams into competitive offerings – including those offered by Cisco, RingCentral, and Zoom. That makes it more difficult for customers to switch to alternative offerings.

As such, Microsoft’s moves to avoid charges seem too little, too late, with the EU seemingly set to issue formal charges against the world’s biggest company by market cap.

The EU’s Big Tech Clampdown Continues

With a ruling seemingly in the works, the EU continues its clampdown on big tech firms attempting to assert dominance over various tech markets.

That clampdown comes after the European Commission launched its Digital Markets Act (DMA) last year, which put additional regulations on six “gatekeeper” tech firms.

Alongside Microsoft, those firms include Alphabet (Google’s parent), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok’s parent), and Meta.

Since then, the EU has launched new investigations into Alphabet, Apple, and Meta – in addition to Microsoft.

Indeed, the Commission also announced last month that it’s investigating Microsoft for its $13BN deal with OpenAI – which may have also broken anti-competition law.

With these cases coming to the fore, Microsoft seems set to end its 10+ year evasion of EU regulations.

After all, the EU last fined Microsoft in 2013. Then, it issued a €561MN charge after the tech giant failed to comply with a ruling over its bundling of Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has refused to comment on the development of its Teams-Office unbundling case but referred back to a previous comment:

[Microsoft will] continue to engage with the commission, listen to concerns in the marketplace, and remain open to exploring pragmatic solutions that benefit both customers and developers in Europe.

As for the European Commission, it declines to comment on the news altogether.

 

 



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