The US software company has been on the EU competition
enforcer's radar since 2020 when Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack
complained about the tying of Teams with Office.
Alfaview, based in Karlsruhe in south-western Germany and
with a 500-strong workforce, said it had filed a similar complaint to the
European Commission.
Bundling both products together gives Teams a unique
competitive advantage that is not justified by performance and which rivals cannot
match, it said.
This has a significant and permanent impact on competition
in the communication software market, Alfaview continued.
"Tying Teams with the other applications in the
Microsoft 365 suite creates a multipolar distribution advantage for the US
group," its managing director and founder, Niko Fostiropoulos, said in a
statement.
Microsoft declined to comment on Alfaview's complaint. The
Commission confirmed receipt of the complaint, saying it would assess it based
on its standard procedures.
Microsoft added Teams to Office 365 in 2017 for free, with
the app eventually replacing Skype for Business.
The Commission is set to launch an investigation into the
move after Microsoft's remedies fell short, people familiar with the matter
told Reuters earlier this month.
Microsoft, which has been fined a total of 2.2 billion euros
($2.5 billion) in the previous decade for practices in breach of EU competition
rules, has offered to cut the price of its Office product without Teams, but
regulators want a bigger reduction, the people said.
No formal investigation has been opened yet, but Microsoft
is subject to an informal probe.
"We continue to engage cooperatively with the
Commission in its investigation and are open to pragmatic solutions that
address its concerns and serve customers well," a Microsoft spokesperson
said.
Alfaview urged the EU antitrust watchdog to open a formal
investigation, saying remedies offered by its US rival to the Commission were insufficient.
© Reuters
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