Microsoft Corp contravened EU antitrust rules by bundling its Teams communications software with its popular Office suite, Brussels said yesterday, as the US tech giant vowed to do what it takes to address competition concerns.
The charge sheet comes after the European Commission, the EU’s influential antitrust regulator, launched a probe last year triggered by a 2020 complaint from Slack Technologies Inc.
The commission informed Microsoft of its “preliminary view” that it had “breached EU antitrust rules” by bundling Teams with its cloud-based Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites, which include Word, Excel and Powerpoint programs.
Photo: Reuters
Even before the charges, Microsoft tried to assuage the EU’s concerns by untying Teams in Europe before expanding the policy to around the world in April.
The EU also had worries that Microsoft might have limited interoperability between Teams’ competitors and its own offerings, although the company in September last year introduced “improvements” to make it easier for rivals, but the commission said Microsoft’s changes did not go far enough.
“The commission preliminarily finds that these changes are insufficient to address its concerns and that more changes to Microsoft’s conduct are necessary to restore competition,” it said in a statement.
EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said that “Microsoft now has the opportunity to reply to our concerns.”
The company would be able to offer commitments to avoid a large fine and president Brad Smith has indicated that Microsoft would be willing to take additional steps.
“Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the commission’s remaining concerns,” Smith said in a statement
Slack had lodged its complaint as its market share diminished, and it has since been bought by the company Salesforce Inc.
There is no deadline for the formal inquiry to wrap up. Should the outcome of the probe go against Microsoft, it could face a heavy fine or other ordered remedies.
Microsoft has come under greater European scrutiny in the past few months. EU regulators are looking into Microsoft’s partnership with ChatGPT developer OpenAI to determine whether it is a disguised merger.
The commission also received a separate complaint in late 2022 from Amazon.com Inc-backed cloud trade group CISPE against Microsoft over its cloud licensing practices.
The two sides are currently seeking to resolve the issue through talks.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary