Exclusive: Microsoft to separate Teams and Office globally amid antitrust scrutiny
Microsoft offered its chat and video software Teams separately from its Office product worldwide, six months after unbundling the two products in Europe to avoid a potential EU antitrust penalty. Since a 2020 complaint by Salesforce-owned Slack, the European Commission has been looking into Microsoft's tiered Office and Teams offerings. Teams, which was integrated to Office 365 in 2017, replaced Skype for Business and gained popularity during the epidemic because to its video conferencing features. Rivals claimed that bundling the items gives Microsoft an unfair edge. Microsoft began selling the two programs separately in the European Union and Switzerland on August 31, last year. Presently, customers can choose to renew, upgrade, or switch to the new licensing packages beginning April 1. Office pricing without Teams varies from $7.75 to $54.75 depending on the package, whereas Teams Standalone costs $5.25. Microsoft's unbundling may not be enough to avoid EU antitrust penalties, as competitors criticize the amount of costs and the capacity of their messaging services to integrate with Office Web Applications in their own products. Microsoft, which has racked up 2.2 billion euros ($2.4 billion) in EU antitrust fines over the last decade, faces a punishment of up to 10% of its global annual revenue if found guilty of antitrust violations.
