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Slack has filed an antitrust complaint over Microsoft Teams in the EU – TechCrunch:
Workplace instant messaging platform Slack has filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in the European Union, accusing the tech giant of unfairly bundling its rival Teams product with its cloud-based productivity suite.
A spokeswoman for the Commission's competition division confirmed receipt of a complaint, telling us via email: "We confirm that we received a complaint by Slack against Microsoft. We will assess it under our standard procedures."
We've also reached out to Microsoft and Slack for comment.
Per the FT, which has a statement from Slack, the company is accusing Microsoft of illegally abusing its market power by tying its competing product, Teams, to its dominant enterprise suite, Microsoft 365.
"Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers," Slack said in the statement.
In further comments to the newspaper, Slack executives said they're asking EU regulators to move quickly "to ensure Microsoft cannot continue to illegally leverage its power from one market to another by bundling or tying products."
Slack told the newspaper it wants the Windows maker to be forced to sell Teams separately to Microsoft 365 customers at a separate price, rather than bundling it with the existing suite and absorbing the cost.
[...] For longtime tech watchers, Microsoft being accused of unfairly bundling in the EU will of course bring back plenty of memories. Although, most recently, the tech giant has been making hay out of Apple being put under formal antitrust probe in the region — with president Brad Smith claiming in a Politico video interview last month that Cupertino's app store walls are "higher" and "more formidable" than anything it threw up in years past.
Reminder: All the way back in 2004, EU antitrust regulators slapped Microsoft with the (then) biggest ever fine — around a half billion euros — for abusing a near monopoly position with its desktop OS, Windows, to try to crush competitors in the digital media player and low-end server market. So, er...
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Sunday July 26 2020, @06:46PM
problem is people tend to use what is already installed.
This is the same thing MS did when they integrated Internet Explorer so tightly into Windows 98 that the OS couldn't work without it. The only reason for it was to force IE onto every computer running Windows and dissuade people from installing other web browsers.
Being a monopoly isn't illegal, using that monopoly to leverage your product into another market in a way that harms fair competition is.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."