If you work in an office—or even remotely, but do "office" work—it's likely you use the Microsoft Office suite as a core part of your documents workflow. Of course, Microsoft knows this, and has bundled its Teams app with the suite since 2017.

Then, when the pandemic exploded the popularity of chat apps like Teams, Slack, Google Meets, and Zoom, things got heated. 

"At the height of the lockdown in 2020, Slack filed a complaint with the European Commission accusing Microsoft of anticompetitive behavior by bundling Teams with Office," writes the New York Times. "And last summer, Eric Yuan, the C.E.O. of Zoom, called on the F.T.C. to follow the E.U. in investigating the Teams-Office tie-up." 

Seems the other kids in the schoolyard thought Microsoft was playing a bit too anticompetitive-ly.

Well, in October, Microsoft unbundled Teams from its Office suite and sold the two independently to customers in the EU and Switzerland, reports Reuters. The move was seen as way to head off a possible antitrust investigation from the European Commission. Whether that's the case or not, Microsoft has announced this week that it would unbundle Teams from Office globally.

"To ensure clarity for our customers, we are extending the steps we took last year to unbundle Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers globally," a spokesperson for the tech giant told Reuters. "Doing so also addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies." 

"This move may not completely ward off further regulatory scrutiny, but showing regulators Microsoft is willing to be proactive could still soften the stance by regulators," Gil Luria with D.A. Davidson added. 

And an EU fine could be punishing for Microsoft. The penalty is 10% of the overall annual revenue of the company globally, which amounts to several billions for the company. And speaking of profits, Microsoft shares rose, despite the announcement, "as analysts questioned whether the move would mean much for the tech giant’s bottom line," the Times states. "Data from the research firm Sensor Tower showed that use of Teams stayed relatively stable even after the program was cleaved out of Office in the E.U."

Continued Scrutiny 

As we've written about here before (several times), this is the era of antitrust scrutiny for Microsoft and the rest of its Big Tech cohort. So, sure, Microsoft might be potentially saving itself from an investigation looking into Teams, but will that satisfy regulators in the EU, US, and beyond?

The Feds already ruffled Microsoft's acquisition of Blizzard late last year over concerns of a video game monopoly, and multiple agencies globally are investigating the Redmond, Washington, firm's involvement with OpenAI. "We are inviting businesses and experts to tell us about any competition issues that they may perceive in these industries, whilst also closely monitoring AI partnerships to ensure they do not unduly distort market dynamics," said Margrethe Vestager, the EU antitrust chief.

THE VERDICT:

Antitrust fever is showing no signs of breaking globally, and Big Tech is learning to shuffle its board pieces to avoid some of the harshest scrutiny. Though, said another way, even the threat of an antitrust suit is enough to affect change in these Silicon Valley (and Wall Street) behemoths.