Microsoft will introduce a new version of the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 subscription service that excludes Teams, unbundling a suite following scrutiny from the European Union regulator and complaints from rival Slack.
The move comes after Microsoft agreed to sell the Office 365 suite without the Microsoft Teams offering in the EU and Switzerland last year. The company introduced Teams as a complementary offering to the Office 365 suite in 2017.
Microsoft has enjoyed an unfair advantage by combining the two offerings, many companies have argued. Salesforce-owned Slack called the move “illegal,” alleging that Microsoft forced customers to install Teams through its market-dominant productivity suite and hid the true cost of the chat and video service.
in a technology/microsoft-separate-teams-office-globally-amid-antitrust-scrutiny-2024-04-01/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>statement to ReutersMicrosoft said the separation “also addresses comments from the European Commission by giving multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies.”
Reuters reported that Microsoft will introduce the new lines of Office 365 on Monday. Microsoft had not implemented the change at the time of publication.
TechCrunch has reached out to Microsoft for more details. We'll update the story as we learn more.