By Edith Hancock
The European Commission is seeking feedback on concessions Microsoft has offered in a bid to end an antitrust investigation into how it offers its Teams platform to customers in the European Union.
The Commission said Friday that Microsoft has offered to make its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites available without Teams at a reduced rate and allow existing customers to switch to using those suites without Teams. The company has also pledged to offer platforms that compete with Teams better interoperability with Microsoft products and let customers move their data out of Teams to facilitate using competing products.
Microsoft also said that if the commitments become binding it will align its worldwide suites offers and pricing with its EU plans, the commission said. The regulator is now asking for industry feedback on those commitments.
The European Union executive had started investigating how Microsoft offers its software to customers following a complaint from rival Slack Technologies. Germany's Alfaview also complained.
Nanna-Louise Linde, Microsoft's vice president of European government affairs, said in a blog post on Friday that the commitments "represent a clear and complete resolution to the concerns raised by our competitors and will provide European customers with more choices."
Sabastian Niles, president and chief legal officer of Slack's owner Salesforce, said that the company would carefully scrutinize Microsoft's offer.
"The European Commission's announcement of a market test further affirms that Microsoft's anticompetitive practices with Teams have harmed competition and require a binding, enforceable, and effective remedy," he said.
Write to Edith Hancock at edith.hancock@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
05-16-25 0625ET
