Microsoft risks huge fine over “possibly abusive” bundling of Teams and Office

Enlarge / A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at a conference on January 30, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. (credit: Cesc Maymo / Contributor | Getty Images News)

Microsoft may be hit with a massive fine in the European Union for “possibly abusively” bundling Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites for businesses.

On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings of an investigation into whether Microsoft’s “suite-centric business model combining multiple types of software in a single offering” unfairly shut out rivals in the “software as a service” (SaaS) market.

“Since at least April 2019,” the EC found, Microsoft’s practice of “tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications” potentially restricted competition in the “market for communication and collaboration products.”