Microsoft Faces EU Scrutiny for Alleged Abusive Bundling of Teams

[Nomad76]

The European Commission has preliminarily concluded that Microsoft breached EU antitrust rules by tying its Teams communication product to Office 365 and Microsoft 365 productivity suites. The Commission considers Microsoft dominant in the global SaaS productivity applications market and is concerned that since at least April 2019, the company has been unfairly promoting Teams by bundling it with core productivity applications.

This practice allegedly restricts competition in the communication and collaboration products market, prevents customers from choosing whether to acquire Teams, and may limit interoperability with competitors' products. The Commission fears this could hinder innovation and harm customers in the European Economic Area, potentially violating Article 102 of the TFEU, which prohibits abuse of a dominant position.





Despite Microsoft's recent changes to Teams distribution, the Commission deems these insufficient to address its concerns. The investigation, initiated following complaints made last year by Slack Technologies and alfaview GmbH, has led to a Statement of Objections being issued. This allows Microsoft to examine relevant documents and respond to the allegations.

"We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses. And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation on these markets. If confirmed, Microsoft's conduct would be illegal under our competition rules. Microsoft now has the opportunity to reply to our concerns." — Margrethe Vestager, Executive Vice-President in charge of competition policy

If found in violation, Microsoft could face fines up to 10% of its annual worldwide turnover and be required to implement remedies. The Commission notes that there is no legal deadline for completing the investigation, and its duration depends on various factors including case complexity and the company's cooperation. The Commission emphasizes that this preliminary view does not prejudge the investigation's final outcome.

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[Chaitanya]

There are quite a lot of things wrong with MS for which they can be put under lens from acquisition of game studios to Windows issues(Bitlocker, MS account, etc...) but this looks quite weak sauce move from EU.

 

[64K]

Any time that MS gets taken behind the woodshed is a good thing for consumers. They are hell bent on forcing whatever they can get away with on consumers. It's not like they aren't already drowning in money. They just try to weasel more out of people any way they can.

 

[Dr_b_]

Why did that take so long, and where is enforcement of this in other markets outside of the EU?
Teams is just one problem with MS, among many and more severe ones, like data collection and privacy, monopolistic consolidation of other markets like gaming, and AI

 

[TheinsanegamerN]

Had to use Teams for a meeting this week. By god what a hot steaming turd. It was like using skype via 2007. Had to reload it thrice to get video,t he mic function didnt work, and just overall super jank.

Frankly there's no excuse for it being so bad.

 

[Dr_b_]

Had to use Teams for a meeting this week. By god what a hot steaming turd. It was like using skype via 2007. Had to reload it thrice to get video,t he mic function didnt work, and just overall super jank.

Frankly there's no excuse for it being so bad.

Yeah its a smelly one, its like MS forgot how to make a chat app, its worse than skype, you would at least be able to get separate pop up windows for chats, not they can easily get missed.

 

[dir_d]

I actually like Teams a lot. I figured in the next couple years they would add email to Teams and it would become the new Outlook. It already has Calendering functions.

 

[Kenjiro]

I actually like Teams a lot. I figured in the next couple years they would add email to Teams and it would become the new Outlook. It already has Calendering functions.

Yeah, and then a collegue send You in chat a link to calendar entry or link to Word/Excel file which forcibly opens in browser instead of Teams. It is even worse if you use Sharepoint sites within Teams. MS integration between his products is lacking, instead it force you to external browsers, while MS Teams is in-browser app.

Even app itself is not really stable:
- sometimes it grows up to multiple GB in RAM (maybe memory leak) and then Windows kills it, it does not restart, you do not know whether it closed until you hover on tray icon (Windows bug),
- new version do not work with some cheap cameras and MS directs you to "compatible" ones, and old (working) version work only till restart, after restart it switches to new one automatically,
- app restarts itself every few days (probably updating) and after restarting it even do not go back to previous view,
Unstable, mediocre, with multiple bugs growing in time which possible never will be fixed properly - it looks like small team of few people is working on it after work-hours.

 

[dir_d]

Yeah, and then a collegue send You in chat a link to calendar entry or link to Word/Excel file which forcibly opens in browser instead of Teams. It is even worse if you use Sharepoint sites within Teams. MS integration between his products is lacking, instead it force you to external browsers, while MS Teams is in-browser app.

Even app itself is not really stable:
- sometimes it grows up to multiple GB in RAM (maybe memory leak) and then Windows kills it, it does not restart, you do not know whether it closed until you hover on tray icon (Windows bug),
- new version do not work with some cheap cameras and MS directs you to "compatible" ones, and old (working) version work only till restart, after restart it switches to new one automatically,
- app restarts itself every few days (probably updating) and after restarting it even do not go back to previous view,
Unstable, mediocre, with multiple bugs growing in time which possible never will be fixed properly - it looks like small team of few people is working on it after work-hours.

Not saying it's perfect but i see big potential if Microsoft can talk across their different divisions.

 

[Halo3Addict]

It's a bit ironic that MS gets flagged for one of their worst apps, in terms of usability. Electron based chat apps are the worst in terms of resource management, and while I don't mind having Discord on my personal system, in a work environment Teams is a huge resource hog that slows down my laptop. Electron needs to die has no place on Windows (or MS) when much more efficient frameworks already exist.

 

[HOkay]

Teams is a big resource hog, probably due to Electron, but I use it all day every day on a laptop & barely have any issues, aside from a very hot laptop! I fully agree them bundling it in restricts competition & this is something that should be addressed somehow. However, Teams works well for my daily work needs & I doubt my company would use a chat/meetings app from anyone else unless the cost difference was huge.

 

[sephiroth117]

It's a bit ironic that MS gets flagged for one of their worst apps, in terms of usability. Electron based chat apps are the worst in terms of resource management, and while I don't mind having Discord on my personal system, in a work environment Teams is a huge resource hog that slows down my laptop. Electron needs to die has no place on Windows (or MS) when much more efficient frameworks already exist.

I understand your frustration but Electron serves a demand, which is building your app in the same language you build your website with and thus it’s going nowhere given the popularity of nodejs/js/typescript. Investing in a c++, dotnet, Qt profile etc it’s great but expensive and companies prefer just recycling a web app into a desktop app or putting those profiles on more performance critical apps like batches, data engineering etc.

really not a fan of nodejs and electron but if it can run a visual studio code, it should run a chat app, up to the developers to improve them, if you have bad code, the language change won’t do miracles in most cases

 

[Chrispy_]

I'm unsure why the EU is picking on Microsoft for this. Autodesk, Adobe, Apple, Google - all are guilty of the same thing if that's true. Adobe Acrobat is bundled with Creative Cloud in an open PDF editor market. Is the EU commission going to go after Adobe next? Picking on just Microsoft for this practice when it's rife across the whole industry seems like missing the forest for the trees.

The EU could be pulling Microsoft up on much more significant, more consumer-relevant charges related to ignoring user choice for browser, default apps, privacy violations, advertising, etc - but no, nothing about that. The huge US vs Microsoft antitrust lawsuit of 2001 is basically ready for a re-run. Microsoft have broken most of the same rules all over again but this time round they get a free pass? Why is that?!

 

[Steevo]

They should have been sued for the terrible handoff of old and new teams and outlook. Wanna add 20 seconds to your boot time and have to close multiple windows?

 

[Denver]

There are quite a lot of things wrong with MS for which they can be put under lens from acquisition of game studios to Windows issues(Bitlocker, MS account, etc...) but this looks quite weak sauce move from EU.

European Union is taking self-destructive actions.

There is no rational justification for this statement. While Microsoft has its share of criticisms, it does not prevent you from purchasing alternative software.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

The best thing about Teams is that it looks identical when opening it in a browser. I'm guessing because the entire app is basically a web browser. Of all the MS apps, it's not the worst. That crown belongs to New Outlook. Excel and PBI are my ultimate go-tos at work though. As always, MS's office apps break all the window rules that other devs are asked to follow, so there's that.

 

[dir_d]

The best thing about Teams is that it looks identical when opening it in a browser. I'm guessing because the entire app is basically a web browser. Of all the MS apps, it's not the worst. That crown belongs to New Outlook. Excel and PBI are my ultimate go-tos at work though. As always, MS's office apps break all the window rules that other devs are asked to follow, so there's that.

I use Office LTSC because i hate the new Outlook so much.

 

[Vayra86]

There are quite a lot of things wrong with MS for which they can be put under lens from acquisition of game studios to Windows issues(Bitlocker, MS account, etc...) but this looks quite weak sauce move from EU.

Too little too late. I mean there are whole generations of enterprise that simply use Windows, the end.

We missed the train during the pandemic. Hard. And Teams is still leagues better than these leaky shit apps like Zoom. Security and correct data handling is key here and MS has the weight to keep that constant investment going.

Still, I'm ALL FOR an EU initiative, state-driven noncommercial suite of internet services that comply with EU standards and keep the data on the continent. We need this. And we shouldn't be using the market. There's enough brains in our universities. Use them and make it an R&D oriented thing carried by the member states, then release it and place governance at the EU level. Now everyone's involved and invested and the user base can access a free service paid by tax money and not infested with ad-driven bullshit.

The best thing about Teams is that it looks identical when opening it in a browser. I'm guessing because the entire app is basically a web browser. Of all the MS apps, it's not the worst. That crown belongs to New Outlook. Excel and PBI are my ultimate go-tos at work though. As always, MS's office apps break all the window rules that other devs are asked to follow, so there's that.

Did you get a hold of the new version of Teams yet? Its... not an improvement if you ask me. Also it seems the service is losing reliability, as in, components might or might not be loaded/working, plugins can be absent (like giphy, or smilies in chat), statuses can be plain wrong or heavily delayed, there's really no end to the little issues that eventually 'fix' themselves. Its clear the cloud needs a LOT of continuous work to keep it 'reliable' for end users.

I'm like, ok. Fine if you're in enterprise environments... its not bad to have a half hour off because the systems don't work. But privately? Not in a million years do I want this nonsense.

European Union is taking self-destructive actions.

There is no rational justification for this statement. While Microsoft has its share of criticisms, it does not prevent you from purchasing alternative software.

So far these self destructive actions have been EU victories, exclusively. MS lost the browser war, they lost the media player war, in part because of the EU. They are simply persistent motherfckers, but so is the EU.

In the end we're an immense piece of the world economy and culturally easy to get a foothold in for US companies. They will comply. All of them. Every time. Look at Apple.

 

[bug]

There are quite a lot of things wrong with MS for which they can be put under lens from acquisition of game studios to Windows issues(Bitlocker, MS account, etc...) but this looks quite weak sauce move from EU.

It depends on where you stand. 10+ years ago we tried to compete in this space, we had a pretty nifty solution. We were still losing (potential) clients left and right, because they kept discovering that because they bought this and that from MS, they got to use Teams for free.

 

[Denver]

Too little too late. I mean there are whole generations of enterprise that simply use Windows, the end.

We missed the train during the pandemic. Hard. And Teams is still leagues better than these leaky shit apps like Zoom. Security and correct data handling is key here and MS has the weight to keep that constant investment going.

Still, I'm ALL FOR an EU initiative, state-driven noncommercial suite of internet services that comply with EU standards and keep the data on the continent. We need this. And we shouldn't be using the market. There's enough brains in our universities. Use them and make it an R&D oriented thing carried by the member states, then release it and place governance at the EU level. Now everyone's involved and invested and the user base can access a free service paid by tax money and not infested with ad-driven bullshit.


Did you get a hold of the new version of Teams yet? Its... not an improvement if you ask me. Also it seems the service is losing reliability, as in, components might or might not be loaded/working, plugins can be absent (like giphy, or smilies in chat), statuses can be plain wrong or heavily delayed, there's really no end to the little issues that eventually 'fix' themselves. Its clear the cloud needs a LOT of continuous work to keep it 'reliable' for end users.

I'm like, ok. Fine if you're in enterprise environments... its not bad to have a half hour off because the systems don't work. But privately? Not in a million years do I want this nonsense.


So far these self destructive actions have been EU victories, exclusively. MS lost the browser war, they lost the media player war, in part because of the EU. They are simply persistent motherfckers, but so is the EU.

In the end we're an immense piece of the world economy and culturally easy to get a foothold in for US companies. They will comply. All of them. Every time. Look at Apple.

These victories are an illusion, products simply become more expensive as a side-effect, and Europe as a whole is rapidly heading for economic and political collapse.

Apple is happy to have a reason to charge more for everything.

 

[bug]

These victories are an illusion, products simply become more expensive as a side-effect

Way to miss the point. Bundling almost always makes stuff less expensive. It's the other side effects of bundling that we need to worry about.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_bundling#Advantages_and_disadvantages

 

[JLP]

Good. such a bad bloated and unreliable app such as Teams should not get so much use unless people are foolish to use it or forced to use it because of monopoly abuse or some similar wrongdoing. I thought Cisco WebEx was the worst of the bunch when I had to use it at work, until I was forced to use this terrible Teams. Also EU should also act much stronger with huge penelties for the monopoly abuse from Microsoft spyware/adware/bloatware that they call Windows. Even smarter would be to strongly support and push for the use of freedom/privacy/rights respecting libre and opensource applications like GNU/Linux, LibreOffice and others. If all invested so much money in opensource as it gets wasted on abusive Microsoft software we would live in a much nicer and more just world.

 

[Craptacular]

So far these self destructive actions have been EU victories, exclusively. MS lost the browser war, they lost the media player war, in part because of the EU. They are simply persistent motherfckers, but so is the EU.

In the end we're an immense piece of the world economy and culturally easy to get a foothold in for US companies. They will comply. All of them. Every time. Look at Apple.

Can't say that I agree with that. Microsoft losing the "browser war" is not on EU, it is just simply that Google advertised the hell out of Chrome and they made its speed of loading websites a key feature.

I don't think the EU had anything to do with the "loss of media player" as it is more like people started streaming everything on YouTube. If anything, Apple had far more impact with ipod and iphone and itunes just absolutely dominating digital music market.

Microsoft has already unbundled Teams from their office suites, so what more does EU want?

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I

Can't say that I agree with that. Microsoft losing the "browser war" is not on EU, it is just simply that Google advertised the hell out of Chrome and they made its speed of loading websites a key feature.

I don't think the EU had anything to do with the "loss of media player" as it is more like people started streaming everything on YouTube. If anything, Apple had far more impact with ipod and iphone and itunes just absolutely dominating digital music market.

Microsoft has already unbundled Teams from their office suites, so what more does EU want?

I think chrome took off thanks to android. Want to sync passwords, history, tabs, and bookmarks from your Android phpne? Use chrome browser.

 

[Chrispy_]

The best thing about Teams is that it looks identical when opening it in a browser. I'm guessing because the entire app is basically a web browser. Of all the MS apps, it's not the worst. That crown belongs to New Outlook. Excel and PBI are my ultimate go-tos at work though. As always, MS's office apps break all the window rules that other devs are asked to follow, so there's that.

New Outlook is an abomination. It's just worse than what it replaced because it's missing a significant number of features its predecessor still has, falls into the trap of low-density, finger-friendly phone UI for a desktop-only app, and defaults to being absolutely no use whatsoever over the web version. Why even bother making a desktop app for a cloud service if it's not going to do anything the web interface already does?!

In some cases, those features it's missing are the sole remaining reason that customer is still using Microsoft for their email in the first place. They literally have no idea what their paying customers are paying them for in the first place :\