Microsoft To Adjust Office-Teams Pricing in Bid To Avoid EU Antitrust Fine (reuters.com) 12
An anonymous reader shares a report: Microsoft has offered to widen the price differential between its Office product sold with its chat and video app Teams and its software sold without the app in a bid to avert a possible EU antitrust fine, according to three sources. The move by the U.S. tech giant comes five years after Salesforce-owned Slack complained to the European Commission about Microsoft's tying of Teams with Office. In 2023, German rival alfaview filed a similar grievance to the EU watchdog. Teams, which was added to Office 365 in 2017 for free and eventually replaced Skype for Business, became popular during the pandemic due in part to its video conferencing.
Mixed Feelings (Score:4, Interesting)
What I mean is that Word and excel really have nothing to do with one another. And Outlook has little to do with either. But we accept that "Office" as a bundle of those three is acceptable. Here, have some PowerPoint. Maybe Publisher is in there and maybe Access. All that this has in common is "stuff useful to an office worker."
Seems to me these days screen-sharing and meetings are part of the evolving office. So why shouldn't it be okay to add that functionality to Office? I get it, Slack doesn't like the idea. Nor do Zoom and TeamViewer. But... maybe this ubiquitous activity where standalone competitors don't make a whole lot of sense. Nobody's really working on an excel-killer because there's no point.
I'm interested in other folks' thoughts on this because I'm just not sure where I come down on this decision.
Re: Mixed Feelings (Score:1)
"Word and excel really have nothing to do with one another. And Outlook has little to do with either."
What they have in common is that at one point Microsoft was using secret APIs for office, and the published APIs were the same functions but with a delay loop.
Anticompetitive action is how we got here.
Re: (Score:3)
"Word and excel really have nothing to do with one another. And Outlook has little to do with either."
What they have in common is that at one point Microsoft was using secret APIs for office, and the published APIs were the same functions but with a delay loop.
Anticompetitive action is how we got here.
Know that I'm not new to this. I'm one of the grizzled old guys. The original MS antitrust trials involving forcing OEMs to bundle Windows licenses with all machines was something I lived through. But today is today. Just because a company did something bad nearly three decades ago doesn't mean that this thing is also bad. Doesn't mean it isn't, either. I'm hoping for discussion and debate based on merits of the situation, not... other stuff.
Re: Mixed Feelings (Score:3)
How we got here is not "other stuff".
Microsoft continues the anticompetitive acts to this day, this bullshit CPU instruction for Windows 11 is a great example. They never changed their stripes.
Re: (Score:2)
I also lived through all of that, and I think that you make a great point. The last three enterprises that I have worked for had standardized on Google's office suite. Yes, they had some people that used excel, but that was perhaps a dozen licenses out of thousands of desktops. And nothing is stopping Google from bundling Meet with their toolset.
Of course, this is less about Microsoft and bundling and more about the EU and taxation. After all, if you are the EU why not fine Microsoft? They are going
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Re: (Score:2)
I'm wondering what kind of idiot would still be using Microsoft's products when Libreoffice is just as good, plus free, open and honest.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the person that wants something Libreoffice doesn't provide, like Onenote?
Otherwise I generally agree with you that MS-Word & excel aren't anything special, and I still hate Outlook.
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Is some shitty note taking UI really worth subjecting yourself to privacy invasion by Microsoft, or worse?
Monopoly Like Abuse (Score:5, Insightful)
Because so many business will not switch off of excel and Exchange/Outlook, Microsoft has "conveniently" bundled more software along with it, at a price other software vendors cannot compete; Microsoft is abusing their economy of scale/market dominance. The original 90's Office bundle was what many players in the market were offering, namely WordPerfect, and there was competition, sot of. Fast forward 20 years and when an "office productivity app" concept comes along, like Slack, Zoom or Dropbox, Microsoft simply bundled their own version with EXISTING LICENSES at a price point below what Slack, Zoom etc. were offering. The people in charge of money at businesses made a nearly entirely financial savings decision to use whatever Microsoft bundles, because piecemealing possibly better apps together is more expensive, since excel and Exchange/Outlook are must have applications.
So (Score:2)
Why doesn't Libre/ODF do some deal and bundle some video conferencing software with LibreOffice?
It's not just a couple of apps (Score:3)
Microsoft recently tried to fuck people over by automatically jacking up the price of their Office 365 subscription to include "AI" whether people asked for it not. Some people successfully managed to downgrade again but this is straight up shitty anti-consumer behaviour. Of course the best way to avoid this BS is don't participate in the first place.