A commitment by Microsoft to offer stripped-down versions of its productivity suites without the Teams communication service has been accepted by the European Commission — resolving a high-profile antitrust case against the Redmond company.
The settlement, announced Friday morning, comes more than five years after Slack filed its initial complaint, and more than two years after EU regulators opened their investigation.
In the meantime, Slack has been acquired by Salesforce, Teams has climbed to about 300 million monthly average users, and the attention of the world has shifted to AI.
Microsoft will continue to offer versions of its Microsoft 365 suite with Teams included, although those without Teams will come at a reduced price. The company started offering unbundled versions of Teams worldwide last year. EU market testing resulted in the company making additional price reductions, according to the commission’s announcement.
Under the settlement, the company also committed to improving interoperability with competing services, making it easier for customers to port their data to other platforms.
The company’s commitments will last for seven years — with the interoperability and data portability measures extending to 10 years — and will be overseen by a monitoring trustee. Failure to comply could result in a fine of up to 10% of Microsoft’s worldwide revenue.
While the probe was initiated by Slack’s complaint, a second company, Alfaview GmbH, also filed a complaint in 2024. Both companies have now withdrawn their complaints.
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