Microsoft Office Could Be Cheaper Without Teams in EU Deal
Microsoft Making Office Cheaper Without Teams? EU Regulators Check It Out!
Get this: Microsoft's apparently offered to make its Office stuff cheaper if you don't get Teams with it. The big bosses in the EU who deal with companies playing fair said this on Friday. This could totally save Microsoft from a huge fine and maybe chill things out with the US too.
The European Commission, that's who's looking into it, wants to hear what other companies and customers think before they say 'yes' to this offer. You know, just to make sure it's all good. Someone over at Reuters actually told us about this idea earlier this week, before anyone else!
If they do say 'yes', it would finally wrap up this super long case that started way back in 2020. Remember when Salesforce, which owns Slack, complained? Yeah, that was it. That complaint could have ended up costing this huge US tech company a ton of money in fines. Oh, and some company in Germany called alfaview complained too.
Microsoft's main person for talking to European governments, Nanna-Louise Linde, wrote something online saying this offer completely fixes the problems other companies brought up. She thinks it will give people in Europe more choices, which is pretty cool, right?
So, their offer means you could buy Office 365 and Microsoft 365 without Teams for less money than the ones that include Teams, the EU competition folks said. Microsoft even said the biggest difference in price would be about 8 euros, which is like 9 US dollars.
The offer also says that other companies can kind of work with some of Microsoft's products and services for certain things. They can also stick Office web apps, like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, inside their own products. Plus, they can put their own products into Microsoft's main apps that help you get stuff done. And get this, customers in Europe would even be able to take their Teams messages and use them in other apps that compete with Teams. That's pretty interesting, right?
This price difference thing would be good for seven years, and being able to work with other stuff would last for ten years. Microsoft has had to pay 2.2 billion euros in fines from the EU for playing unfair before, so this is a big deal for them. They said if the EU says 'yes' to their offer, they'll make the options and prices for their Office stuff and Teams the same all over the world.
Microsoft's Linde said she's really hoping that after they ask everyone what they think, the European Commission will agree that this offer takes care of their worries. She's hoping they'll make a final decision in the next few months to close the investigation. Anyone who cares has a month to tell them what they think. Salesforce said they're gonna look at the offer super closely.
It's also worth remembering that the US president, Donald Trump, has said he might put extra taxes on countries that fine US companies. So, there's that to think about too. What do you think will happen with all this?
