Microsoft could remove Teams from Office package
Microsoft has offered to create a version of its Office and Microsoft 365 productivity suite without the Teams video conferencing and collaboration app, Financial Times reports.
The commitment comes after several parties — including Slack owner Salesforce — complained to the European Union (EU) that Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with Office was anti-competitive.
Zoom is reportedly one of the other companies that also complained.
According to people close to the matter, Microsoft’s solution proposes that companies will be able to buy Office with or without Teams.
Microsoft has not confirmed whether Teams will be available as a standalone product.
The sources said that talks over the compromise are still ongoing.
Microsoft reportedly hopes the concession will be sufficient to avoid a formal antitrust investigation by the EU.
The software giant previously ran into trouble with the EU after it was found to be abusing its dominance in operating system market share by bundling Internet Explorer and Media Player with Windows.
While it initially settled with the EU, its failure to honour the agreement around Internet Explorer led to a fine of €561 million (R11.3 billion).
Despite that expensive lesson, Microsoft seems intent on repeating history with its approach to Teams and its Edge browser on Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Several updates to these operating systems have made it difficult for users to select default browsers other than the Edge browser, open web links via certain apps through Edge regardless of default browser choice, and annoyed users with pop-ups and banners encouraging them to switch to Edge.
Now read: Microsoft forcing Outlook and Teams links to open in Edge
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