EU regulators will accept Microsoft’s promise to carve out Teams from its hugely popular Office packages, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The move comes after rivals and customers raised no serious objections in a so-called market test, the people added.
The decision — expected to be rubber stamped in the coming weeks — is likely to mark a respite in fraught EU-US relations following President Donald Trump’s recent attacks on Brussels’ crackdown on Silicon Valley. The European Commission had previously warned Microsoft that its abuse of market power since 2019 gave Teams an unfair advantage over rivals.
Under the settlement, Microsoft will agree to sell Teams separately from its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 packages. The commitments include an obligation for Microsoft to charge less for packages without Teams and to improve interoperability for rival software using Microsoft services. The people said the decision is still in a draft form and timing could yet slip.
Both the EU commission and Microsoft declined to comment on the upcoming acceptance of the commitments.
The EU’s case followed a complaint from messaging platform Slack in 2019. Slack was acquired by Salesforce Inc., a provider of cloud-based customer management software, in a $27.7 billion deal in 2021.
The impending Teams decision follows intense White House criticism of the way the EU’s powerful competition enforcer has overseen US tech firms. The commission delayed plans to fine Google this week amid concerns that the decision could provoke a backlash from Trump.
Despite unveiling a tranche of multibillion-euro fines against Big Tech over recent years, the Brussels-based commission is increasingly keen on brokering agreements with companies to avoid legal battles over alleged anti-competitive conduct.
In other probes into alleged abuse of dominance, Apple Inc. signed up to an agreement to open up its mobile wallet technology to rivals while Amazon.com Inc. revamped its marketplace “Buy Box” and agreed to stop using non-public data.
