Microsoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says • Hacker News Board

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

#741

Post by ThunderSizzle » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

lesuorac wrote: post #690

Wytwwww wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft forced anyone wanting to buy the Office suite to also buy Teams True, but that also applies to every other single app and service that they are bundling with the subscription. I only want Excel but I'm also forced to pay for PowerPoint. And how deep should we go? Should they be forced to turn Edge into a paid product you have to buy separately? They crippled if not outright killed the consumer anti-virus…

When it's a separate application I think the line has already been drawn. I don't think you should have to turn Edge into a paid product similar to how I don't think grocery stores should be forced to charge you if you use a shopping cart. If Microsoft wants to include Windows Defender for free but if they're increasing the cost of a Windows License to accommodate that development effort then it's not ok. Microsoft c…

But bundling exists everywhere. Why is Microsoft the only offender?

Like you pointed out with cable, if I want just Disney Kids on cable, I need to buy all of Disney's channels, including ABC, etc. This is because that's how the cable provider has to buy it from the networks.

Why aren't they being told they have to unbundled channels from each other? I can't pay per view sports games - they offer subscriptions that bundle the entire season. The NFL is the worst on this. Why can't I just pay a few bucks to watch one game?

It seems like if bundling Teams with Office is that big of a deal, then customers should stop using Office, and use a competitor, just like I avoid cable.

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

#742

Post by ThunderSizzle » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 2:47 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #736

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, this is an interesting problem. By nature of competition, every customer a competitor takes is a customer missed. So when is competition anti-competive? In the story above, a competitor to Teams couldn't "keep up". Is that really Microsoft's problem? Should Microsoft have made Teams more useless, more expensive, or less integrated so that competitors that couldn't make their own cheaper or better version had…

> Should Microsoft have made Teams more useless, Hard to see how. MS could devote resources to making MS Teams more useful, but they don't have to, so they don't. It's not competing with Slack on features and usability or fun. It's competing with Slack on "you get a chat app and hey, it's free (with office)" and that makes the board happy.

I dont disagree with that. Honestly, I think chat should just go away in favor of emails and meetings (and meeting minutes). I've had too much business knowledge disappear into the Slack or Teams void that I can never get back.

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

#743

Post by darknavi » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 2:48 PM UTC

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #732

doron wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I changed from a Slack-using employer to a MS Teams-using employer around 2 years ago, I found it impossible to argue that the usability of MS Teams was even close to the usability of Slack. Slack was significantly better in this regard. MS Teams had better integration with some other MS services such as OneDrive. That's obviously going to be so, that's what it's for.

We use Slack for text comms and Teams for video meetings. Seems like a decent balance, Slack video calls seems very unpolished compared to the Teams video experience.

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

#744

Post by sib » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 2:49 PM UTC

gostsamo wrote: post #136

falcor84 wrote: post #130

Earlier 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…

And people who need spreadsheets are not the same as people who need documents as people who need slides etc.

Of course there is overlap, but there is also lots of overlap among those who need chat/meet and those who need slides.

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

#745

Post by CamperBob2 » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 2:51 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #740

Wytwwww wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> preceding the 1980s it was generally understood that competition itself is a necessity for effective free markets and that extreme power concentration (as we e.g. see today in the IT sector) Yet Bell wasn't broken up until 1982 so I'm not sure if it was a such a turning point. IMHO allowing AT&T's monopoly to exist for that long was much more detrimental to consumers than whatever MS, Apple and other tech companies…

I fully believe we lost more than we gained from the breakup of AT&T - local access prices went up significantly, and while long distance rates declined, it did so roughly linearly with the decreasing cost of bandwidth. In the end we pay about as much as we ever have in aggregate - but at a loss of all of the benefits the AT&T monopoly - subsidized general science research from the labs, a plethora of union jobs, and…

I fully believe we lost more than we gained from the breakup of AT&T - local access prices went up significantly

Interesting. Out of curiosity, may I ask how old you are?

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

#746

Post by fauigerzigerk » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 2:57 PM UTC

pydry wrote: post #718

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #705

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>> 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 will.

I'm not so sure. Debates about how to break up the tech giants often revolve around which particular activities shouldn't be under the same roof because there is an intrinsic conflict of interest.

For instance, some of the accusations against Amazon appear to be pointing to a potential solution where Amazon would no longer be allowed to compete with Amazon Marketplace traders or with publishers. Not sure if Lina Khan has anything like this in mind or not.

We also had many debates about whether media companies should be allowed to be internet access providers or operate internet backbones. Net neutrality is supposed to stop any misuse of power, but net neutrality itself is under constant fire from deregulators.

The thing is, it doesn't make much sense to break up a specific company because doing both A and B causes a conflict of interest but then let other companies do A and B. That's why in my view any such breakup implies a need for defining boundaries between markets that cannot be crossed.

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

#747

Post by godzillabrennus » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:00 PM UTC

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #735

Perseids wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market concentration is really the underlying problem. Microsoft should never have been allowed to buy GitHub. Microsoft Windows should have long been split into a separate company to Microsoft Office etc. If there wasn't this one gigantic business, then whichever smaller business made Teams would have a much more equal footing with other competitors, as they would not be at an unfair advantage for integration into o…

The number of anti-Microsoft people that still use Github is astounding to me, and then just blame Microsoft for buying it. At some point, if people want an alternative to Github, perhaps it starts with people not using Github and switching to alternatives. Honestly, it would seem people like market concentration. I don't think people like having to use multiple repository management websites. However, I do wish it w…

Network effect. Especially for open source. The thinking is basically that GitHub is where developers find your project so if you don’t use GitHub you won’t find developers.

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

#748

Post by Rinzler89 » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:02 PM UTC

constantcrying wrote: post #620

DANmode wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many of those entrepreneurs are explicitly agreed with by antitrust regulators of major jurisdictions...?

You are just assuming OP is telling the truth. Look at his product: https://taskulu.com/ it wasn't killed by Teams, but by Jira.

It's why we need the full context before believing everything these "serial entrepreneurs" say whenever they cry "wah-wah #BIG_CORP killed my product", so we can be the judges if indeed big corp killed it, or if it was just a DOA product coasting on the pandemic IT spending boom fueled by zero interest rates, like the other thousands of unprofitable startups of the time that are now under.

Since the OP refused to provide any further details or answer any questions people sent towards him, I tend to believe it's the latter.

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

#749

Post by antifa » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:07 PM UTC

doron wrote: post #715

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's extremely easy to argue that Slack is much better than MSTeams, but now the market does not exist for anyone who wanted to make something better than Slack.

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

#750

Post by stoperaticless » Wed, Jun 26, 2024, 3:10 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #290

EasyMark wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it be that we have a fairly widely spread defecto definition of “office suite” as word processor, spread sheet, presentation, email as it’s been that way for decades? Not sure about “communications”however I think it is a serious argument to consider that a separate product, but not the others, they’re kind of like peanut butter and jelly or Bonnie & Clyde or the three stooges.

I think that is a very un-serious argument with no consistency. Microsoft has always sold a cheaper "office suite" without outlook. What businesses have historically bundled and not bundled is irrelevant to what is best for society going forward. Surely there were many features that many software businesses add that weren't there before. What if Microsoft relabeled Teams to be part of Outlook? Like they made Calendar…

Tradition is more serious than you think.

Being around for a long time is a quality of its own. It strongly implies familiarity and good enough fit for everybody. (Traditions compete in a sense, some do not survive)