Microsoft just dodged a potentially massive EU antitrust fine by agreeing to fundamentally restructure how it sells Teams. The European Commission accepted the tech giant's commitments to unbundle its collaboration app from Office suites and improve data portability - ending a four-year regulatory battle that started with Slack's complaint about anticompetitive bundling practices.
Microsoft has successfully navigated one of its biggest regulatory challenges in years, avoiding what could have been a billions-dollar EU antitrust fine through a carefully negotiated settlement that will reshape how European businesses buy collaboration software.
The European Commission announced today it has accepted Microsoft's commitments to address longstanding competition concerns around Teams bundling, effectively closing the book on a case that began when Slack filed its explosive antitrust complaint in July 2020. The timing couldn't be more critical - with the enterprise collaboration market now worth over $47 billion annually following the pandemic-driven remote work boom.
"The commitments address the Commission's concerns related to the tying of Microsoft Teams to the company's popular productivity applications Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook," the European Commission stated in its decision. The settlement requires Microsoft to make Office suites available without Teams at reduced prices and allow enterprise customers with long-term licenses to switch to unbundled versions.
But the most significant changes go beyond pricing. Microsoft must now provide full interoperability between Teams and competing collaboration tools, plus enable customers to easily export their data from Teams to facilitate switching to rivals like Slack, Zoom, or Discord. These data portability requirements will remain in force for 10 years - longer than the seven-year enforcement period for other commitments.
The regulatory pressure has been building since the pandemic transformed Teams from a secondary Microsoft product into a $1 billion revenue driver. Slack's original complaint alleged Microsoft had "illegally tied" Teams to Office and was "force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers." The complaint gained traction as Teams' user base exploded from 20 million in 2019 to over 320 million by 2024.
