Microsoft offers a less pricy Office without Teams to end antitrust probe

Brussels — Microsoft has offered to sell its Office product without Teams at a lower price than Office with Teams, as well as offer rivals better interoperability access to its services and products, EU antitrust regulators said on Friday.

The European Commission said it was now going to seek feedback from rivals and customers before deciding whether to accept the offer. 

If accepted, Microsoft’s offer would bring an end to a long-running case triggered by a 2020 complaint by Salesforce-owned Slack, which could have resulted in a hefty antitrust fine for the US tech giant.

Microsoft’s vice-president for European Government Affairs Nanna-Louise Linde said in a blogpost that the proposal was a clear and complete resolution to concerns raised by rivals, and would give Europeans more choice.

Microsoft’s offer would allow Europeans to buy Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites without Teams at a lower price than that for corresponding suites that include Teams, the EU competition enforcer said.

Rivals could get access to, and have effective interoperability with, certain Microsoft products and services for specific functionalities and could also embed Office Web Applications (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) in their own products, and they could prominently integrate their products in Microsoft’s core productivity applications, the EU said.

Customers in Europe would be able to extract their Teams messaging data for use in competing solutions. The pricing offer would be valid for seven years and interoperability for 10 years.

Microsoft said if its pricing offer is accepted, it would align the options and pricing for its suites and Teams service globally.

Interested parties have a month to provide feedback. Salesforce said it would carefully scrutinise the offer.

Reuters