Fined 2.2 billion euros for ten years, Microsoft Office may be bundled or subject to EU antitrust investigation

Beijing, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) the software giant is likely to face an antitrust investigation by the European Union as EU regulators step up their scrutiny of Salesforce's workplace chat app Slack's complaint against Microsoft, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

Last year, Slack complained to the European Commission that Microsoft had unfairly integrated its workplace chat and video application Teams into Office products. Microsoft launched Teams in 2017, hoping to grab a piece of the fast-growing and lucrative office collaboration market. Slack urged EU competition enforcement agencies to order Microsoft to separate Teams from Office office suites and sell them separately at fair commercial prices.

The European Commission sent another batch of questionnaires to Microsoft competitors last month, following a survey conducted in October last year, according to people familiar with the matter. It is a sign that EU competition enforcement agencies are preparing for a formal investigation. "the European Commission is looking at Microsoft's interoperability and bundling operations, but this time it is more detailed. They are looking for information that will enable them to identify remedies." A person familiar with the matter said. "they are preparing for the investigation," said another person familiar with the matter. "

In the past decade, Microsoft has been fined 2.2 billion euros (16.4 billion yuan) for alleged bundling and other practices. The European Commission and Microsoft declined to comment.