Microsoft is looking to settle with the European Union (EU) over antitrust concerns about its business practices, according to Reuters.
It is understood that Microsoft is trying to prevent the opening of a formal EU antitrust investigation by working through issues with EU regulators.
The matter stems from a complaint made by Slack in July 2020 to the EU Antitrust Commission, where the company accused Microsoft of “crushing competition” and “illegally abusing” its position within the software market.
Slack claims that Microsoft force installs its Teams platform on user devices and makes it difficult to remove due to the tying of the Teams collaboration product to the market-dominant Office productivity suite.
Slack believes that by allegedly carrying out the above practices, Microsoft breaches European Union laws about fair competition.
The complaint prompted the EU to send out surveys in October 2021 to deem whether bundling Teams into Microsoft Office as a free product has given it an unfair market advantage.
At the time, Reuters claimed the EU had sent out a survey that focused on the years between 2016 and 2021
Last month, Reuters reported that the EU had sent out a fresh round of questionnaires, with sources claiming that it was a sign that the EU is preparing to go ahead with a formal investigation.
In November 2021, around 30 European software firms united to take on Microsoft, again calling the US giant’s business practices anti-competitive.
The group dubbed themselves a ‘coalition for a level playing field’ and specifically accused Microsoft of shutting out competitors by tightly integrating OneDrive and Teams with Windows.
German collaboration vendor Nextcloud was the driving force behind the campaign and filed complaints with the EU and in its native country.
Commenting in November 2021, Frank Karlitschek, CEO and founder of Nextcloud, said: “This kind of behaviour is bad for the consumer, for the market and, of course, for local businesses in the EU.”
“This is quite similar to what Microsoft did when it killed competition in the browser market, stopping nearly all browser innovation for over a decade. Copy an innovators’ product, bundle it with your own dominant product and kill their business, then stop innovating”
“Together with the other members of the coalition, we are asking the antitrust authorities in Europe to enforce a level playing field, giving customers a free choice and to give competition a fair chance.”
Neither Microsoft nor the EU Commission has commented on any potential antitrust investigation.
UC Today will continue to follow the story and bring you any further developments.
