Washington
CNN
—
Microsoft will not promote its Groups collaboration software program as a bundled product with its Workplace 365 suite wherever on this planet, the corporate mentioned Monday, within the face of antitrust considerations.
The choice to separate Groups from Workplace globally extends a previous announcement final yr affecting solely the European Union. And it comes after rivals resembling Salesforce’s Slack complained in 2020 that Microsoft’s practices have been a type of anticompetitive self-dealing.
Slack’s grievance led to a European Fee antitrust investigation of Microsoft that’s nonetheless ongoing.
Monday’s announcement seems aimed toward allaying a few of these considerations, permitting clients worldwide to purchase Microsoft’s Workplace software program with out Groups included and the flexibility to purchase Groups as a standalone product for enterprise clients.
In a press release, a Microsoft spokesperson mentioned the transfer would “guarantee readability for our clients.”
“We’re extending the steps we took final yr to unbundle Groups from M365 and O365 within the European Financial Space and Switzerland to clients globally,” the spokesperson mentioned. “Doing so additionally addresses suggestions from the European Fee by offering multinational firms extra flexibility once they need to standardize their buying throughout geographies.”