BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The European Commission on Tuesday told Microsoft
that it suspects the company may have violated anti-trust law by
bundling its Teams messenger software with the Microsoft Office
suite.

As the European Union's anti-trust enforcer, the commission objects
to bundling when it believes a company is exploiting its dominance in
one market to gain an advantage in another.

In this case, Microsoft is dominant in the market for what the
commission calls 'productivity software,' meaning word processors
like Microsoft Word and spreadsheet tools like Excel.

But the commission is arguing that Teams competes in a separate
market for 'communication and collaboration products,' and that
bundling it with Office is unfair to providers of standalone software
in this other market - such as Slack, whose complaint prompted the
commission to open an investigation on July last year.

The commission is also concerned about 'interoperability limitations
between Teams' competitors and Microsoft's offerings.'

In a statement, Microsoft's Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said
the company had 'unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability
steps.'

But the commission's statement said the EU executive 'finds that
these changes are insufficient to address its concerns and that more
changes to Microsoft's conduct are necessary to restore competition.'

Smith said: 'We appreciate the additional clarity provided today and
will work to find solutions to address the commission's remaining
concerns.'

The commission's objections are a preliminary opinion in an ongoing
investigation, not a final judgement. There is no deadline for the
commission to complete its investigation, but it could fine the
company up to 10% of its global annual revenue and prescribe remedies
if it concludes Microsoft broke the law.


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