Investing.com
Published Sep 05, 2023 19:28
On Tuesday, Zoom (NASDAQ:ZM) CEO Eric Yuan suggested that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) might want to consider investigating Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)’s practice of bundling its Teams software into Office packages. This remark was made during the Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) Communacopia + Technology Conference, as reported by Bloomberg.
The suggestion comes after the European Union (EU) regulators forced Microsoft to stop bundling Teams into Office in Europe earlier this year. The EU’s decision followed an investigation launched in July 2023, in response to a complaint by Slack, another competitor to Teams. Slack alleged that Microsoft had unfairly dominated the market by adding Teams to Office 365 at no additional cost.
Yuan’s comments reflect growing concerns about Microsoft’s bundling practices. For example, Vox Media switched from Zoom to Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Meet due to its inclusion in their Google Workspace account. Similarly, users have reported that a Teams icon appears in their PC’s system tray after upgrading to Windows 11, launching automatically upon startup.
Microsoft has been frequently accused of trying to promote its products through other offerings. Examples include pop-ups in Windows 11 encouraging Edge use and resetting default search engines to Bing. Furthermore, Windows reportedly ignores users’ default browser choices when certain links in the operating system are clicked.
Microsoft Teams has seen significant success, boasting around 300 million daily active users as of June 2023. However, it remains unclear how much of this success is attributable to its bundling with Office and preinstallation on every Windows 11 PC. The potential FTC investigation suggested by Yuan could shed light on this question.
This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.
Get The App
Join the millions of people who stay on top of global financial markets with Investing.com.
Download Now
Written By: Investing.com
