Brussels has given the green light to the commitments put forward by Microsoft to resolve competition concerns surrounding Teams, turning them into legally binding obligations under the European Union's antitrust rules.
With this decision, the technology company is committed to unlink Teams from its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites In the European Economic Area, improve interoperability with competing tools and facilitate data portability, with a view to restoring fair competition conditions.
What the European Commission has decided
The Commission concludes that the joint sale of Teams with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook granted to the communication application a distribution advantage that is difficult to match, restricting competitive play in the cloud collaboration market.
To address this problem, the agreement requires Microsoft to offer a stable Office 365 and Microsoft 365 versions without Teams at a lower price than the packages that include it, no longer applying more advantageous discounts on offers with Teams than on those without it.
Additionally, when Microsoft advertises a package that includes Teams, the relevant sites will need to show the alternative in parallel equivalent without the collaboration application, with clear information about interoperability and data portability for developers.
After the market test, the company adjusted its proposal and agreed to increase by around 50% price difference between some suites with and without Teams, thus reinforcing the commercial separation between both products.
What changes will Microsoft implement?
Business customers in the EEA will have recurring opportunities to migrate from suites with Teams to packages without the application, being able to deploy them in data centers in any region.
The company will guarantee a effective interoperability between services that compete with Teams and certain Microsoft products, so that key communication and collaboration features work seamlessly.
Rival companies will be able to integrate into their solutions the Office web apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and, in turn, achieve a prominent presence within Microsoft productivity applications, fostering a more open ecosystem.
It is also enabled that EEA customers extract messaging data from Teams for use in competing alternatives, simplifying portability between platforms.
Microsoft has indicated that it will align its offers and prices globally With these commitments, it will also offer Teams-free suites for frontline workers and further reduce the cost of its broader enterprise suite without the app.
Duration and compliance control
The commitments will be valid during seven years, except those relating to interoperability and data portability, which will be extended to ten years due to its relevance in ensuring sustained and frictionless access.
An independent administrator will oversee the execution, with the ability to mediate disputes between third parties and Microsoft and to periodically report to the Commission; if disagreements persist, an expedited arbitration mechanism is provided.
Background of the case
The formal investigation began in 2023 after the complaint of Slack Technology (today part of Salesforce), which was joined in 2024 by the German supplier alphaview, focusing the analysis on the possible anti-competitive link between Teams and productivity suites.
During the process, Microsoft partially separated Teams from Office, but the Commission considered that these moves were insufficient, which is why he demanded more far-reaching changes to restore balanced market conditions.
According to the regulators' preliminary assessment, prior commercial integration would have given Teams a undue advantage in distribution compared to competing collaboration tools, strengthening Microsoft's position in the professional segment.
Market Reactions and Reach
The Community Executive stresses that the agreed package opens the market to other communication and collaboration providers in Europe and gives companies back the freedom to choose the solution they prefer.
European officials, such as the vice-president in charge of competitiveness, Teresa Ribera, have valued the agreement guarantees the real possibility of choice for organizations of all sizes, especially in an environment where hybrid work has skyrocketed the use of these tools.
On behalf of the company, the vice president for European government affairs, Nanna-Louise Linde, noted that Microsoft collaborated with the Commission and will now implement the new obligations quickly and fully in the region.
With these measures, Brussels hopes to rebalance the playing field, encourage interoperability between platforms and facilitate the change of supplier without technical or commercial barriers, something that can drive innovation in the sector.
The decision places Microsoft before a clear and prolonged framework of obligations and supervision, while offering customers and competitors regulatory certainty on prices, data and technical integration, key elements for effective competition.
