Microsoft to sell Office without Teams in proposal to EC
By Josh White
Date: Friday 16 May 2025
(Sharecast News) - Microsoft offered a series of new concessions to the European Commission on Friday, in a bid to settle a long-running antitrust investigation into the bundling of its Teams communications app with Office 365.
Its proposal reportedly included unbundling Teams from its Office and Microsoft 365 software suites, offering those products at a lower price without Teams, and enhancing interoperability for rival services.
The European Commission launched its probe following a 2020 complaint by Slack, now owned by Salesforce, which alleged that Microsoft unfairly tied Teams to its widely-used productivity software, limiting competition.
While Microsoft began selling Office without Teams in Europe last year, regulators deemed the initial changes insufficient.
The new commitments included maintaining the separation for at least seven years, allowing customers to switch products mid-contract, and enabling easier data migration from Teams to competing apps.
Microsoft also pledged to allow rival tools like Zoom to integrate more directly with Outlook and other Microsoft products.
The moves were apparently designed to address criticism that Microsoft created technical and contractual barriers to effective competition in the enterprise collaboration space.
The European Commission would now launch a market test, collecting feedback from competitors and enterprise customers before deciding whether to formally accept Microsoft's offer.
If accepted, the commitments would likely bring the case to a close without a fine.
Penalties under EU antitrust law can reach up to 10% of a company's global turnover, but sources cited by Reuters indicated that regulators were leaning toward accepting Microsoft's proposals.
Microsoft expressed confidence that its revised offer would resolve the Commission's concerns, calling the proposal the product of months of good-faith negotiations.
Salesforce, however, cautioned that it would closely examine the details to ensure any commitments are binding and effective.
At 0642 EDT (1142 BST), shares in Microsoft Corporation were down 0.04% in premarket trading in New York, at $452.93.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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