EU targets Microsoft's software bundling

Bloc says tech giant has been 'restricting competition'

- KELVIN CHAN

Microsoft violated European Union antitrust rules with "possibly abusive" practices by tying its Teams messaging and video conferencing app to its widely used business software, the bloc said.

The European Commission said it informed Microsoft of its preliminary view the U.S. tech giant has been "restricting competition" by bundling Teams with core office productivity applications such as Office 365 and Microsoft 365.

The commission, the 27-nation bloc's top antitrust enforcer, said it suspects Microsoft might have granted Teams a "distribution advantage" by not giving customers a choice on whether to have Teams when they purchased the software. The advantage might have been widened by limits on the ability of rival messaging apps to work with Microsoft software, it said.