Microsoft proposes sweeping global concessions to Teams for up to a decade

Microsoft is offering to make a series of concessions for up to ten years to pacify European Commission antitrust regulators. This follows protests from users that tying Teams with its biz productivity applications hinders competition. The executive body of the EU confirmed today it is seeking feedback on those modificaitons …

[El Duderino]

TL;DR - sod off, MS

Happy Linux Mint & LibreOffice user for 2 years now, and Signal since lately when Skype was 'replaced' by Teams - I'm MS-free. Luckily I'm in the fortunate position of being retired so no need for corporate MS 'quality' anymore.

[billdehaan]

Video chat groups are a commodity now

Twenty years ago, Skype was revolutionary. Things like Zoom followed, as did WebEx, Google Chat, Jitsi, Element, Jami, and a ton of others.

Teams is no longer a revolutionary "must have" product. It's just Microsoft's implementation in a competitive space. Group chats are no longer a technical differentiator, everyone has them. Teams offers security, which most of the free chats lack, but which all of the commercial ones offer, as well. So what argument is there for Teams?

Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem. That benefits Microsoft as much as, if not more, than the user. So it's not surprising that Microsoft is acting conciliatory about this with the EU. Customers can replace Teams with WebEx or Google offerings pretty easily without much loss of function. That would hurt MS more than the customers, so it's in MS best interest to suddenly pretend to care about customers.

More's the pity that similar competitive forces can't get them to disable telemetry and AI integration, which is what most companies and users really care about.

[Pascal Monett]

"Microsoft is offering to make a series of concessions"

No, it's not.

Redmond is deflecting the issues, giving itself time with bureaucratic drivel meant to sivert attention from its main goal which is and always has been total domination.

The only problem with that is that open source is gaining not only in momentum, but in functionality, reliability and, most importantly, trust.

Trust is a word Redmond has long forgotten in its quest to transform every Personal Computer under its control into a monthly renting contract.

What galls me the most is not that Redmond is trying this, it's that highly-paid, supposedly educated intelligent people are blindly following this program like drunken idiots.

Wake up. Your Excel charts are not worth the money you are paying.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Microsoft is offering to make a series of concessions"

I'm sorry, but my employer pays for the software I use and he also pays me for filling up those Excel charts. So, according to you, I should raise the issue with my employer, even refuse to work with Microsoft software because....?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "Microsoft is offering to make a series of concessions"

Though to be fair, I think he was referring to those who make the decisions and inflict MS stuff on users, not those of us forced to use it by our employers and their IT teams.

FFS, we've been told that when Win 11 rolls out, we're going to have to sign in with our full email addresses "because that's what Microsoft dictates". Across the sizeable organisation, the extra keystrokes will amount to the typing out the bible or Lord of the Rings every day or two ! Just one small indicator of how some organisation are so blind to where the MS road is taking them - we've long since past the point where if someone actually understood the tech and was honest, we've long sovereignty over our own information.

[Cliffwilliams44]

This is the most nonsensible argument I've ever heard.

No one forces ANYONE to use Teams! Whether it's installed or not!

This nonsense that a company, giving something away for free is somehow "anti-competitive" is so ridiculous!

I bought a set of knives from Ninja, it came with a free sharpener. Are knife sharpener company going to sue ninja for being anti-competitive? I certainly will not be buying any knife sharpeners any time soon.

The fact remains; these companies cannot build a product that competes with Office to get that customer base. Slack IS NOT an innovative product! They DID NOT create that space, they build on the works of those who can before them, just as MS did. So now they want protection, BS!

Make a better product that companies will pay for. Frankly Teams is terrible for "team collaboration", It's an OK chat program but that's really it!

What the real problem is there isn't the strong market for that type of collaboration. My employer has, over the years, tried to get that into our corporate culture many times, people JUST DON'T DO IT! They'd rather just use email and chat! I am sure many other companies have wasted money on programs like these with the same poor take up! So, a free 'chat' program is all they need!

[Anonymous Coward]

Skype migration was a disaster.

After Microsof migrated mine and many people I know personal accounts into big mess so that we can't contact via teams, no teams for me. Only use it when a company invites for a web conference. Personal use of Teams died together with Skype.