The Commission yesterday announced it had informed the tech giant of its preliminary view that Microsoft gave Teams a distribution advantage by automatically signing up subscribers to its software-as-a-service (SaaS) productivity applications.

It also said that the advantage may have been further exacerbated by interoperability limitations between Teams’ competitors and Microsoft’s offerings, potentially preventing Teams’ rivals from competing and in turn innovating.

If confirmed, these practices would infringe Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which prohibits the abuse of a dominant market position.

Although Microsoft made changes to the way it distributes Teams after the Commission opened proceedings in July 2023 — offering some suits without Teams — the Commission has preliminary found that these changes are insufficient to address its concerns.

Margrethe Vestager, the Commission’s executive vice-president in charge of competition policy, said: “We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses.

“And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation on these markets.

“If confirmed, Microsoft’s conduct would be illegal under our competition rules. Microsoft now has the opportunity to reply to our concerns.”