The threat of a European Union investigation appears to have made Microsoft drop the bundling of its Teams collaboration appliction with the Office productivity software.
First reported by the Financial Times, organisations that buy Office will have the option of doing so with or without Teams.
“We are mindful of our responsibilities in the EU as a major technology company.
"We continue to engage cooperatively with the commission in its investigation and are open to pragmatic solutions that address its concerns and serve customers well,” FT quoted a Microsoft spokesperson as saying.
Microsoft has a long history of legal brawls with the EU over anticompetitive practices.
The IT giant has been slapped with billions of dollars of fines over several years after the European Commission found that its bundling and tying of applications was illegal.
In 2021, the Commission's anti-trust regulators followed up on a complaint by Salesforce-owned Slack, alleging that Microsoft bundling Teams with Office gave the latter company an unfair advantage.
Teams, which was introduced in 2017, targets enterprise users and integrates with other Microsoft products.
In December last year, Reuters reported that Microsoft had made concessions to address the Commissions competition concerns, in an attempt at staving off a formal investigation which could have resulted in another potentially large fine.
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