Microsoft Corp.'s attempts to avoid further scrutiny from the European Union (EU) over its Teams video-conferencing app have been unsuccessful, with the EU's antitrust enforcers reportedly preparing to issue a formal complaint against the company. According to anonymous sources familiar with the matter, Microsoft's recent proposal to separate Teams from its broader business software package and offer it to customers at a discounted rate annually was not enough to address regulators' concerns. The European Commission is said to be preparing a statement of objections to send to Microsoft in the coming months.
The EU's antitrust investigation into Microsoft's ties between Teams and its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 packages was initiated following a complaint from Salesforce Inc.'s messaging platform Slack three years ago.
Microsoft is currently facing two other complaints filed with EU regulators. One complaint, filed by a European cloud group that includes Amazon.com Inc.'s AWS among its members, accuses Microsoft of using unfair licensing practices to attract EU customers to its cloud infrastructure. The other complaint, filed by German cloud platform NextCloud GmbH, concerns Microsoft's bundling of its OneDrive cloud system with Windows.
In addition to these complaints, Microsoft is also facing an investigation by the EU's digital antitrust regulators, who are examining whether its Bing search engine, Edge web browser, and Advertising services should be subject to the bloc's Digital Markets Act, which sets out rules and regulations for major tech companies.
Both Microsoft and the European Commission declined to comment on the EU's forthcoming complaint.