Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says

Post by Vespasian » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:50 AM UTC

neerajsi wrote: post #483

Vespasian wrote: post #360

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Everybody needs Office. There really is no practical way around it for businesses Now companies get a "free" (initially) software in addition to what they actually want. Microsoft can only afford that because they already get Money from their Monopoly product and can finance it that way without the customers having the ability to object (because Office has a market domineering position). Business chat competitors can…

I'd argue that Office has competition in the form of GSuite, which has collaborative features So how much market share does Office have to lose to GSuite before Microsoft can implement features that their competitor has? Put another way, does a dominant market player have to stagnate in order to avoid breaking antitrust law, rather than anticipating the needs of their customers to make their product more useful?

Post by hypercube33 » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:52 AM UTC

crabmusket wrote: post #448

Auracle wrote: post #294

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Where does that end? Is Paint ok to have installed by default? You can generate images in it now using some sort of credit system, so it’s not totally free. Should Adobe sue? I just don’t get the EU’s overzealous regulations. Who is being hurt by Teams? Slack/Discord/Zoom? I doubt any major companies are using Teams just because it’s installed. They may be using it because it’s part of the Office Suite, but shouldn’t…

> Where does that end? Is Paint ok to have installed by default? These are questions for the democratically controlled regulatory process to decide, which is what's happening with Teams. If you feel that Paint should be considered a harmful bundling practise under current laws, you can organise and push for that investigation to happen. Will it be difficult? Yes. These institutions are slow moving as society is vast…

Post by DANmode » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:54 AM UTC

caminante wrote: post #471

throwaway2037 wrote: post #456

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I am confused by this comment. Was your startup not affected by the previous 10+ years of Microsoft chat products? Examples: Office Communicator, Lync, and Skype for Business. I fail to see how Teams was the "nail in the coffin".

Every entrepreneur wants to assume the counterfactual that but for their startup dying for reason #6354, it would've lived!

Post by prismz » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:55 AM UTC

nextos wrote: post #441

farhadhf wrote: post #405

This essentially killed my (EU-based) startup in the project management and collaborate space. Before MSFT bundled Teams with O365 we were rapidly growing and closing enterprise customers in the automotive, energy and education industries with high retention rates. Right around the time the Teams bundling started our retention dropped, churn went through the roof, growth slowed down, we failed to raise our next round…

Last time I checked, they also arbitrarily excluded Firefox, which works fine on other WebRTC platforms such as Google Hangouts or Zoom. Furthermore, I have always needed a Microsoft account to join a Teams meeting, as they want to make sure you get sucked into their ecosystem. Aside from that, resource consumption on Chromium is totally crazy. Zoom or Hangouts are fine, but Teams makes my old NUC overheat during sim…

Post by DANmode » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:59 AM UTC

shiroiushi wrote: post #435

znpy wrote: post #430

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> This move by the EU is good, but too little too late You should be thankful at all this is happening. On the other side of the ocean bundling office and teams is still perfectly legal. I wonder why nobody at the US antitrust office has said anything at all.

>I wonder why nobody at the US antitrust office has said anything at all. Gee, I wonder...