{"id":419676,"date":"2025-09-12T23:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T23:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/419676\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T23:39:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T23:39:18","slug":"microsoft-resolves-european-union-probe-into-teams-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/419676\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft resolves European Union probe into Teams | Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2013 European Union regulators have accepted Microsoft\u2019s proposed changes<\/a> to Teams, resolving a long-running antitrust investigation that targeted the company\u2019s messaging and videoconferencing app.<\/p>\n

The European Commission said in a statement Friday that Microsoft\u2019s final commitments to unbundle Teams from its Office software suite, including further tweaks following a market test in May and June, are enough to satisfy competition concerns.<\/p>\n

The legally binding commitments will remain in force for up to 10 years and allow the company to avoid a potentially hefty fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate the dialogue with the Commission that led to this agreement, and we turn now to implementing these new obligations promptly and fully,\u201d Microsoft\u2019s vice president of European government affairs, Nanna-Louise Linde, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The Commission, acting on a complaint filed by Slack Technologies, accused Microsoft<\/a> of \u201cpossibly abusive\u201d practices after an investigation, saying that it was tying the Teams app to its widely used Office business software suite, which includes Word, Excel and Outlook.<\/p>\n

Slack, now owned by Salesforce, makes popular workplace messaging software. Alfaview, a German maker of videoconferencing software, also filed a separate complaint.<\/p>\n

Microsoft responded by proposing to make its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software packages available at a discount without Teams, and to let customers switch to packages without Teams. The company also promised to make it easier for rival software to work with Teams and for users to move their data to competing products.<\/p>\n

Salesforce President Sabastian Niles said the final decision sends a \u201cclear message\u201d that Microsoft\u2019s \u201danticompetitive\u201d bundling of Teams has \u201charmed businesses, denied customers fair choice, and resulted in many years of lost competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Teresa Ribera, the European Commission\u2019s executive vice-president for competition affairs, said the announcement \u201copens up competition in this crucial market.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcement comes a week after the Commission, the 27-nation bloc\u2019s top antitrust authority, fined Google<\/a> nearly 3 billion euros ($3.5 billion) because its ad-tech business breached competition rules, prompting President Donald Trump to threaten retaliation.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2013 European Union regulators have accepted Microsoft\u2019s proposed changes to Teams, resolving a long-running antitrust investigation that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[51,2000,299,5187,1699,477,143646,7154,53],"class_list":{"0":"post-419676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-union","13":"tag-information-technology","14":"tag-microsoft-teams-antitrust-european-union-competition","15":"tag-software","16":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115193968343545574","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}