Microsoft: Teams and Office separated amid antitrust scrutiny

Teams was added to Office 365 for free in 2017, then replaced Skype for Business and became popular during the pandemic thanks to its video conferencing features.

A Microsoft spokesperson said, “To make things clear to our customers, we are expanding the steps we took last year to unbundle Teams from the European Economic Area and M365 and O365 in Switzerland to customers around the world.” “This will allow multinational companies to be more flexible when they want to standardize their purchases across regions, and will also be able to respond to feedback from the European Commission.”

Microsoft stated in a blog post that it will introduce a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites that do not include Teams in regions other than the EEA (European Economic Area) and Switzerland, and will also introduce new standalone Teams products for enterprise customers in these regions.

After April 1stCustomers can continue their current license agreement, renew it, or switch to a new offer.

For new commercial customers, the price of Office without Teams depends on the product $7.75 to $54.75It's in the range, but the Teams standalone price is $5.25. This figure may vary by country and currency. The company did not disclose the price of its current packaged products.

Microsoft's unbundling may not be enough to avoid EU antitrust charges that could be sent to the company within the next few months, as competitors have criticized the level of fees and the messaging service's ability to work in conjunction with the Office web application on its services. The people involved said.

Microsoft has been fined for violating EU antitrust laws over the past 10 years for tying or bundling two or more products2.2 billion euros (2.4 billion dollars)It has collected, and if convicted under the Antimonopoly Act, of annual sales worldwide10%There is a risk of being fined.