Microsoft will spin off Teams from Office products to allay antitrust concerns in the European Union

CTOnews.com, August 31 (Xinhua)-- Microsoft announced today that it will spin off Teams, a chat and video application, from Office products to make it easier for competitors to use with Microsoft software, thereby avoiding possible EU antitrust fines.

Microsoft will be the first to make changes in the European Economic area and Switzerland, and from October 1, companies will be able to buy Teams as a stand-alone service at a price of 5 euros per month (currently about 40 yuan) or 60 euros per year (currently about 478 yuan), separate from Microsoft and Office 365.

A month ago, the European Commission launched an investigation into Microsoft's bundling of Office and Teams over a complaint lodged by Slack, a workspace messaging app owned by Salesforce.

The Slack app, owned by Salesforce, complained as early as 2020 that Microsoft abused its market dominance by bundling Microsoft Teams with its popular Office office software to eliminate competition from Microsoft Teams.

"the European Commission is concerned that Microsoft may be abusing and maintaining its market position in productivity software and limiting competition in communications and collaboration products in the European Economic area," the European Commission said in a statement. "

According to CTOnews.com, several people familiar with the matter have revealed that the European Union will launch a formal antitrust investigation into Microsoft's Office office suite bundled with Teams apps. Four people familiar with the matter said that although Microsoft has made some concessions to allay competition concerns, it does not seem to be enough. Two of the people added that once the investigation began, Microsoft could face formal charges from the European Union as early as this autumn.