Microsoft Splits Teams From Office After Antitrust Quiz

Microsoft has decided to discontinue packaging its Teams videoconferencing app with its Office software following antitrust scrutiny, as reported by the Associated Press (AP).

Slack, owned by business software maker Salesforce, alleged that Microsoft was leveraging its market dominance to stifle competition by unlawfully integrating Teams with its Office suite.

The tech giant announced on Monday that customers purchasing Office subscriptions starting this week will no longer receive Teams bundled with the service.

Microsoft will now sell the two products separately worldwide, following a previous move to separate them in Europe last year.

This decision came after the European Union's executive commission, the top competition enforcer of the 27-nation bloc, initiated a formal investigation over concerns that bundling Teams with Office could provide Microsoft with an unfair advantage over competitors.

The investigation stemmed from a complaint filed in 2020 by Slack Technologies, the maker of popular workplace messaging software.

Slack, owned by business software maker Salesforce, alleged that Microsoft was leveraging its market dominance to stifle competition by unlawfully integrating Teams with its Office suite, which includes Word, Excel, and Outlook.

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