‘Microsoft stops bundling Teams with Office after complaint from Slack’

Microsoft will stop bundling Teams with Office products, Financial Times sources say. This could be related to an investigation by the European Commission. Microsoft would like to offer companies two Office packages, one of which does not include Teams.

Two sources say to the Financial Times that the company would have made that concession, but that discussions are still ongoing and it is not certain whether a deal will ultimately be reached. The concession would not trigger a formal antitrust investigation. The agreement would mean that in the future Microsoft will no longer supply the Teams communication app as standard with Office products for business users, but that it will still be available for purchase as an option. Office is now only available as a bundle.

The discussions between Microsoft and the European Commission are the result of a complaint that Slack filed in 2020. Slack criticizes that Microsoft automatically includes the competing Teams with Office. The company asked the European Commission to open an investigation and force Microsoft to stop bundling; a situation that is very similar to the antitrust complaints against Microsoft from 2008 when the company included Internet Explorer as standard with Windows and for which Microsoft received hefty fines.

Microsoft is said to have previously made commitments to the European Commission. Sources told Reuters this last year. It was not yet known at the time exactly what these commitments were.