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

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

#711

Post by leokennis »

rexreed wrote: post #701

Here's what I don't get. Almost everyone I talk to hates Teams. But they use it anyways. Nothing is stopping them from using Zoom or Google Meet, or some other alternative. Yes, these other alternatives have their own problems and tradeoffs. But Teams is just substantially worse than these alternatives. I'll take a Google Meet meeting any day over Teams crap. Nothing is forcing people to use Teams, but they do. It ca…

The elephant in the room here is companies who "do their chat and collaboration" on Teams. If you work in an organization with 10,000 people using Teams, no one is going to join your Google Meet meeting - if you're even allowed to create one.

As someone who uses Teams all day for work, I have to say since they created the "New Teams", the performance is a lot better and especially if you also use OneDrive, Outlook etc. it is a very streamlined and handy tool.

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

#712

Post by dathinab »

xzjis wrote: post #401

The problem is that it's already too late. In my company, we used Teams because it was "free" (they even added a free version that lasted between COVID-19 and 2023), bundled with everything else, and now that we have to pay for Teams alone, we won't consider switching to something else because people are used to Teams. We never considered an alternative, and we will never consider one, and it's just more expensive fo…

> because it was "free"

Being "free" wouldn't have had this effects.

It happened because "they already paid for it" (because of paying for office 356) and because it was "already installed" (kinda).

Also it's one vendor less (some companies care about that a lot).

But IMHO the whole office suite pricing is pretty absurd and unlikely to be based on proper working fair marked, likely even if you remove teams from it.

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

#713

Post by giancarlostoro »

Wytwwww wrote: post #642
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…

That's am understandable perspective but wouldn't this more or less apply to any product any large company is selling as part of a bundle? e.g. selling Word/Excel/PowerPoint together is hurting any start-up that might want to enter the document processing/spreadsheet/etc markets? Free browsers killed the entire market that was starting to appear in the 90s etc. etc. Should office suites be banned? Should Adobe be onl…

The issue is a ton of companies already had Office subscriptions. Versus Teams being an added cost, so its a no brainer to just go "Well why the heck do we need Slack if we are getting Teams at no additional cost?" and now any startup in said space is competing against Office proper, which is a losing battle and a lot of added requirements to get your product off the ground.

If I were Microsoft I'd reconsider bundling Loop, since it's going to disrupt tools like Notion. I mean, why would I bother using Notion, if I can just use Loop? : - )

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

#714

Post by viridian »

kwanbix wrote: post #574
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…

As a product manager myself, it means that the value that people got from your app, was not enough to fight a free product. And I mean free as in if you are already paying for a subscription, and it gets added without aditional cost. I have worked at companies that payed for either Google Workspace or Office 365, and they also payed for Slack.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but this seems to more-or-less read as,

"As a product manager myself, I believe that the use of an advantageous market position to strengthen vertical integration is a reasonable practice, so long as the bundle cost of the final product to the consumer remains the same."

The problem with this, and the reason we we anti monopoly laws in general, is that this practice can be self-reinforcing, and allows for the capture of an entire market, extinguishing all competition. This then allows pricing for the good on offer to be set at whatever arbitrary price the monopoly deems reasonable.

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

#715

Post by doron »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #704
antifa wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day it should only matter if Microsoft's practices are hurting consumers rather than their competitors. MSTeams hurts users 24/7 around the clock.

Agreed. No company settles on MSTeams because it's good . They use it because it's effectively free (1), and Slack is not. It doesn't have to be good. And so it isn't. 1) Free with existing MS Office licences.

It's hard to argue that Slack is significantly better; it got increasingly messy over time. It's not that teams are better; the alternative isn't.

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

#716

Post by eggy »

DANmode wrote: post #613
SassyBird wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must not have seen Bloomberg Terminal then. Most devs on this forum wouldn’t be even able to build anything this performant and ergonomic.

True, Bloomberg Terminal is excellent. Is that the "exception that proves the rule"? What else ya got? Genuinely interested.

Bloomberg Terminal is a hardware/software dynamic duo! Reuters and Dow Jones have competitive packages too.

Other software in finance:

kdb, for time-series analytics [0].

AmiBroker - amazing tech analysis package, and AmiBroker Formula Language (AFL - found this because I like J and APL), an array-based PL with debugger built-in to the AmiBroker platform. Fast [1].

I have been programming since 1978 starting on a Commodore PET 2001, but I saw computers and programming as tools. I was studying neural nets and genetic algorithms in the early 90s. I gravitated to lean, simple and easy software, but somehow every software I use just seems so bloated, in-your-face, inefficient, that I have chosen simple tools to use now. I keep a J interpreter open on my desktop along with Frink as more-than-desktop calculators. I use a Home edition of Mathematica, the orginal notebook interface, that has so much curated data and built-in functions that what was once complicated is now a great ecosystem to do math, analysis, reports, engineering, etc. And, yes, Excel, no matter how much it is disparaged by programmers. I gave up Inventor and other CAD programs for Alibre Design (yes, I have SolveSpace on my toolbar for fun!). I am so glad I steered clear of IT/SW engineering/etc. after speaking to many in all parts of the industry. The tool is their job, not the thing the tool does.

PS: I have run hundred-million-dollar construction jobs in SE Asia and MENA using WhatsApp in the field from my Samsung Note to annotate drawings, photos, etc. even though Slack and high-end PM programs were back in the office.

[0] https://kx.com/products/kdb/

[1] https://www.amibroker.com/

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

#717

Post by croes »

Wytwwww wrote: post #642
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…

That's am understandable perspective but wouldn't this more or less apply to any product any large company is selling as part of a bundle? e.g. selling Word/Excel/PowerPoint together is hurting any start-up that might want to enter the document processing/spreadsheet/etc markets? Free browsers killed the entire market that was starting to appear in the 90s etc. etc. Should office suites be banned? Should Adobe be onl…

I think the real problem is that MS can cross-subsidize its Office bundles.

I doubt the price covers the costs, especially after they added Teams.

Kill the competition, raise the price. G-MAFIA/FAANG playbook

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

#718

Post by pydry »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #705
Perseids wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At the end of the day it should only matter if Microsoft's practices are hurting consumers rather than their competitors. Focusing on short term repercussions for consumers has significantly hurt long term consumer interests and there is evidence that it hurt the economy in general. In the decades preceding the 1980s it was generally understood that competition itself is a necessity for effective free markets and t…

What makes this so difficult is that it would be hard to fix even if there was agreement on the problem. If governments were to parcel up markets and stop companies from crossing rather arbitrary dividing lines, it would effectively stop all investment in disruptive technologies because any real disruption most likely infringes on some of these laws. If you stop large companies from expanding into neighbouring indust…

>If governments were to parcel up markets and stop companies from crossing rather arbitrary dividing lines

There is absolutely no need to do this until you become Microsoft's size and no government has or likely ever will.

There was a lot more innovation enabled by the antitrust action against Microsoft in the early 2000s.

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

#719

Post by hellojesus »

croes wrote: post #717
Wytwwww wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's am understandable perspective but wouldn't this more or less apply to any product any large company is selling as part of a bundle? e.g. selling Word/Excel/PowerPoint together is hurting any start-up that might want to enter the document processing/spreadsheet/etc markets? Free browsers killed the entire market that was starting to appear in the 90s etc. etc. Should office suites be banned? Should Adobe be onl…

I think the real problem is that MS can cross-subsidize its Office bundles. I doubt the price covers the costs, especially after they added Teams. Kill the competition, raise the price. G-MAFIA/FAANG playbook

> I think the real problem is that MS can cross-subsidize its Office bundles.

Wouldn't this apply to any company that sells more than one product or service? Amazon uses Aws margins to subsidize a bunch, including r&d. A lot of biotech companies use profits from one drug to subsidize bad sales in another trying to break into the market.

> Kill the competition, raise the price. G-MAFIA/FAANG playbook

This is a solid business strategy, but it also falls prey to entrants back into the market when the large player raises its prices.

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

#720

Post by throwAGIway »

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…

Basically, users got a good enough product at no additional charge, greatly reduced costs and operational overhead, and you want the government to force users to pay more?
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