They don't just bundle it, they make it auto-start on screen on Windows machines whether you've got an account or not.
[deleted]
Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
381–390 of 808 posts
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#382What's the difference between anti-competitive bundling, and developing seamless integrated experiences? If this is anti-competitive, is it anti-competitive for Apple to bundle music features/up-sell into the iOS UI, or provide an interface for headphones that no other manufacturer can integrate with?
Apple still charges extra for the Apple music service, right? Spotify costs $12/month, Apple music costs $11. If that's true then it seems market competition is working decently in that area. If you could launch a competing service and charge $10 you might have a chance. What Microsoft did was, they said "Hey we have a monopoly on office software. We should have a monopoly on chat too". And they started giving away T…
Feels a bit like your forgetting Skype for business and lync already existed. I kinda agree with your point but I also feel it’s unfair on Microsoft, they are giving their customers more services for the same price, and the customers are using the services… I’m not sure the customer really loses out if ms are saving them another subscription + integration cost.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#383Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are an astounding number of people who never stop for even a second to consider the nuts and bolts implications of the ideas they want to foist onto society.
You're talking about the employees of big tech firms, right?
Yes. As well as their detractors.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#384Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should they have to un-bundle Windows Explorer, Notepad, Photo Viewer, Control Panel, and all the other utilities as well, under the same logic? If not, why?
1) technically? yes, absolutely- apps like explorer or photo viewer should only use public APIs so other companies can make comparable apps on the OS with 90% market share 2) these are all OS utilities, not workplace apps - there's a big difference between Adobe/Microsoft Office/Google bundling their apps where there's a very clear, very powerful disincentive to compete vs something like explorer.
> these are all OS utilities
I think part of the problem is "what is an OS utility" and "what is an app". All your OS configuration could be done via a REST API, text files or some other well defined protocol. So you could have competing configuration apps that all help you manage your config in their own way and unbundle the control panel. Realistically looking at your average sparse linux distro shows just how "minimal" an OS can be, and even they bundle applications. Yet, I realistically don't thing consumers or the tech market at large would be assisted by a law mandating that all operating systems be as minimal as the linux kernel (no GNU/Linux, that's bundling!). And even if you did go that far, now we get into arguments over monolithic kernels and micro kernels.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#385It is a common comment on HN to say Teams is rubbish and also to ask why anyone would use it. Now we have a problem of market dominance, which demonstrates by how far the HN bubble misunderstands how ordinary people do their day to day business. This is the vacuum MS have been consistently winning in for several decades now, it would be worth you understanding it.
Now someone is about to reply that market dominance doesn't mean your app is best. If you think that in this case then you are still missing the lesson. Teams integrates with Windows OS, Azure AD, SharePoint, OneDrive, PowerPoint and Outlook in a way that is so much more useful to ordinary people than anything the other messengers do. Much of that integration is available to any app developer but they choose not to use them so continue to fall behind. Sure there will be some things Slack are not currently getting an API for, but so so much more that they don't use but could, because they don't see why it is important for users.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#386Teams is a pain in the neck! If you make an office calendar appointment for a zoom, Microsoft "helps" you by creating a teams invite in the text of the invitation that gets sent out. So there is always a chance someone you invite will click on the wrong link to be in the meeting. If you ever click on this link yourself teams will install on your system and try in the run in the background every time you boot your computer.
This is just hostile to the consumer. If I want teams I can install it.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#387They don't just bundle it, they make it auto-start on screen on Windows machines whether you've got an account or not.
Microsoft could easily avoid a lot of legal hassle and earn a lot of goodwill if they just offered a version of Windows with nothing but the most basic stuff pre-installed. Hell, just go the typical/custom install that a most other programs have during the initial start up, most people will just select the option that installs Office and the other crap anyway. The people that don't want it will never use it and curre…
They do, buying the pro or server versions lets you avoid all the junk. Turns out people would rather moan on the internet than pay up.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#388When a company’s initial interview is on Teams I see it as a bad sign. If a company forces you to use Windows for your dev machine it’s a red flag. If a company forces you to use a Citrix instance for your dev machine honestly run away screaming and take your sanity with you.
I've had a few interviews that use Teams, but I've always just used the browser version, and it worked fine on a Mac and Linux last time I tried it.
You can do that, but if you get the job you’ll likely be having to use it for a lot more stuff. It’s a sign of a culture that wants to bundle stuff up and manage it in the corporate way as opposed to using the tools that people want to use to do their job.
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#389Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you define "not related" - why would a collaboration tool not be considered part of something called "office suite"? Also to the parent's point, why is it that Google are allowed to bundle Meet as part of their Google Workspace - it does seem like the violations are only applied based on retroactive decisions.
Generally, you define a market by the market participants. There are people who need only the the office suite, and there are those who need the office suite and the colab chat but not necessarily by the same provider. This is visible by the fact that you have colab software providers like slack/zoom. Microsoft is targeted at the moment because they are market leader on the office suite market and they are leveraging…
> Google is not a market leader
Do you have stats that show this? "Market share" sites never feel very trustworthy to me, but they all claim Google Workspace has a substantially higher market share than Office 365, and anecdotally that matches my experience.
> addition, they don't have offline tools to separate from their workspace
This doesn't make sense to me as an argument. It sounds like you're saying that because Google hasn't bothered providing an offline version of their product they get a pass on bundling collaboration software, whereas because Microsoft provides an offline version that makes their bundling more egregious. Why exactly would that be?
Re: Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says
#390Why don't they apply the laws universally and effectively make this kind of bundling illegal for mega corporations? For endusers, it feels like they are playing with different rules for Microsoft Apple Adobe and Google. Since EU waits until the damage is done and milks them, it barely helps the situation for consumers. For corps they just assume the penalty as cost of doing business.
I wonder if they’ll go after iMessage on iOS too.