Slack filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft Teams in the EU
Slack is a well-known team session and knowledge management tool in the industry. Microsoft Teams is the latest communication tool developed by Microsoft to support team sessions.
During the coronavirus epidemic, the number of users of Microsoft Teams skyrocketed, and a large number of companies used the software as a team video call and instant messaging tool for remote office work.
However, this week Slack announced an antitrust complaint to Microsoft Teams in the European Union. The company accused Microsoft of bundling sales to disrupt fair competition in the market.
Microsoft positions Microsoft Teams as a productivity tool and office software, so it is bundled with Microsoft Office and provided to enterprises by default.
“Slackはじめました” by Hideya Aita is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
And after the enterprise purchases and deploys the Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams will be installed by default and the tool cannot be uninstalled directly.
Slack believes that Microsoft’s approach is to force the installation of Microsoft Teams on millions of computers, and companies do not know how much the software costs.
Through this subtle approach, if the company really needs communication tools, it is very likely to use Microsoft Teams because it has been forcibly installed.
This will be a serious blow to competitors such as Slack. Slack believes that Microsoft should separate Microsoft Teams and sell them separately.
In response to this antitrust complaint, the European Commission issued a statement stating that it has confirmed that it has received Slack’s complaint against Microsoft. The commission will investigate according to standard procedures.
After the investigation results are available, they will be announced in time. The current task is to collect evidence against the relevant parties of the complaint and determine whether the complained party has anti-competitive behavior.
Microsoft previously stated that the number of monthly active users of Microsoft Teams has reached 75 million, but Microsoft has not announced the total number of daily active users of the tool.
Via: TechCrunch
