To avoid possible fines, Microsoft unbundled Teams from the Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites in the European Union and Switzerland in October. According to Reuters, the business is now growing this product and selling Microsoft Teams independently of Office 365 and Microsoft 365 in all countries. A Microsoft representative told the publication, “By giving multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies, we are also addressing feedback from the European Commission.”
Current users can now choose to keep their current deal or switch to one of the separate offerings — especially helpful for anyone who uses the Office suite but prefers another communication service like Zoom or Google Meet. Commercial customers new to Microsoft’s offerings can pick up Teams on its own for $5.25, while Office sans Teams is going for anywhere from $7.75 to $54.75.
Microsoft’s journey to unbundling Teams and Office started in 2020 when Slack filed an antitrust complaint with the EU. The now Salesforce-owned company alleged that it was illegal to include Teams in the Office suite and that Microsoft was blocking customers from removing the chat platform. The European Commission has subsequently been investigating this matter, with Microsoft announcing in April 2023 that it would separate Teams from Microsoft 35 and Office 365. Though the move went into effect last fall, Microsoft is still at risk of owing the EU a hefty fine if found to have broken antitrust laws.
