Microsoft has confirmed that it will sell Teams and Office separately around the globe.
The announcement comes six months after Microsoft unbundled the products in Europe, aiming to avoid an EU antitrust fine.
That threat followed a 2020 complaint by collaborations competitor Slack, and the European Commission soon started a formal investigation.
While the antitrust ruling is yet to come, Microsoft aims to get ahead of the curve.
After unbundling the products – first brought together in 2017 – in Europe, it cited “feedback” from the European Commission in its decision to make the move global.
According to Reuters, a Microsoft spokesperson stated:
To ensure clarity for our customers, we are extending the steps we took last year to unbundle Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers globally.
“Doing so also addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies.”
Slack raised the complaint as the COVID-19 pandemic and switch to remote working sparked a spike in revenue growth across the UC and collaborations market.
With many businesses already leveraging Microsoft Office, Teams soon became the go-to platform.
Indeed, the number of daily active users leveraging the UC solution surged from 20 million in November 2019 to 145 million in April 2021.
Now, Microsoft Teams has 320 million monthly active users worldwide.
A New Lineup of 365 Suites
Globally, Microsoft will introduce a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 packages that don’t include Teams – alongside a new standalone Teams offering for Enterprise customers.
As confirmed in a company blog post – cited by Reuters – Microsoft noted how these offerings will be available in “regions outside the EEA (European Economic Area) and Switzerland”.
From April 1, Microsoft Teams and Office users can switch to one of the new offerings or continue and renew their current licensing deal.
Prices for Office without Teams fall between $7.75 and $54.75 per user/month for commercial customers, depending on the package. Meanwhile, standalone Teams costs $5.25 per user/month.
However, those figures may vary across countries and currencies.
The Hot-Take: “Too Little, Too Late”
As Microsoft makes this move, it’s critical to note that the tech giant may not prevent antitrust charges from the European Commission.
Moreover, unbundling the products is unlikely to disrupt the status quo within the UC space.
After all, as global customers can continue to renew their current licensing deals, the announcement seems unlikely to impact Microsoft’s monopoly on the market.
That’s the core of the issue: Microsoft already has a market stranglehold.
Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst at ZK Research, shared similar concerns when addressing rumors of Microsoft unbundling the products late last year.
As quoted by CX Today, Kerravala said such moves would be: “Too little, too late.”
Instead, he suggested Microsoft should open up migration paths to competitive offerings.
“If they really feel Teams is the best product, then unbundle products and provide a migration path to move the data that’s in Teams, particularly chat, out of the platform into a competing product,” he said. “Frankly, this should be a requirement for all the vendors, including Webex, Zoom, RingCentral, and others.
Only by making it easy to switch platforms will we find out who has the best product.
While – in all probability – the European Commission will not necessitate such moves, it does have the power to shake up markets, as Microsoft will be well aware.
Consider when the EU courts deemed Microsoft’s Windows-Internet Explorer bundling anti-competitive. Now, Internet Explorer is little more than a memory.
Nevertheless, it will take a monumental ruling by the EU for history to repeat itself in the UC and collaborations space.
Catch up on all the latest developments across Microsoft Teams by watching our Microsoft Teams News MARCH Update (2024)
