EU opens antitrust probe into Microsoft over Teams bundling

European Union regulators connected Thursday opened an antitrust probe into Microsoft's bundling of its video and chat app Teams with different Office products.

The European Commission, the EU's enforcement arm, said that these practices whitethorn represent anti-competitive behavior.

It is the archetypal antitrust probe by the EU into Microsoft successful implicit a decade.

"The Commission is acrophobic that Microsoft whitethorn grant Teams a organisation vantage by not giving customers the prime connected whether oregon not to see entree to that merchandise erstwhile they subscribe to their productivity suites and whitethorn person constricted the interoperability betwixt its productivity suites and competing offerings," the EU regulators said connected Thursday successful a property release.

In different words, the EU is acrophobic Microsoft is not giving customers the prime to not bargain Teams erstwhile they subscribe to the company's Office 365 product. In doing so, Microsoft mightiness beryllium stopping different companies from competing successful the workplace messaging and video app space.

"These practices whitethorn represent anti-competitive tying oregon bundling and forestall suppliers of different connection and collaboration tools from competing," the Commission added.

Microsoft 365, antecedently known arsenic Office 365, is Microsoft's acceptable of bundle which includes workplace-geared apps similar Word and Excel.

Antitrust investigations bash not person a self-imposed completion deadline. If Microsoft is recovered to beryllium successful breach of EU contention rules, the U.S. tech elephantine could look a good of up to 10% of its full planetary yearly turnover.

Concerns implicit Microsoft connected competitiveness grounds were archetypal raised successful 2020, erstwhile Teams rival Slack submitted a ailment to the EU, successful which it alleged the Redmond tech elephantine illegally tied Teams to its ascendant productivity packages, specified arsenic Microsoft 365. Slack has said the determination meant millions of users were forced to instal Teams without the quality to region it.

A Microsoft spokesperson said, "We respect the European Commission's enactment connected this lawsuit and instrumentality our ain responsibilities precise seriously. We volition proceed to cooperate with the Commission and stay committed to uncovering solutions that volition code its concerns."

- CNBC's Silvia Amaro and Ryan Browne contributed to this report.