Microsoft could face an investigation for alleged unfair practices that are giving it a hand in office software.
Reuters (opens in a new tab) says an EU antitrust investigation could focus on whether the video conferencing service is integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite (formerly Office 365), which includes apps like Word, Excel and OneDrive cloud storage. .
This alleged unfair integration was highlighted by Slack, another big player in the online collaboration space, which is likely to be suffering from Microsoft 365's pricing model.
Teams vs. Slack
Slack currently costs from €7.25 (€5.75) per user per month on an annual contract, and offers full support for chat, video conferencing, and voice calls.
Microsoft's cheapest business plan starts at €6 (€4.50) per month, per year, and includes Teams, 1TB of cloud storage, and web versions of its core apps. A subscription with full desktop clients starts at €12 (€7.90) per month.
Reuters reports that Slack has urged the EU competition authority to require Microsoft to sell its Teams platform separately, outside of the Microsoft 365 suite, which would encourage better competition from Slack, Zoom and Google Workspace.
The European Commission has reportedly sent out more questionnaires after a batch sent out last October, which some people say could be the start of an investigation into the company's practices.
Microsoft is currently working on a premium version of Teams that will see the introduction of things like AI transcription in 40 different languages and more advanced security features. It's expected to arrive in the first quarter of 2023, but for now, at least, that won't stop the standard version of Teams from staying in the larger 365 package.
TechRadar Pro requested a comment from Microsoft; all answers will be updated here.