Microsoft Corp. is changing how it sells its Teams videoconferencing and messaging service in Europe to address antitrust concerns raised by regional regulators.

Nanna-Louise Linde, Microsoft’s vice president for European government affairs, announced the move in a blog post today. The changes to Teams will go into effect on Oct. 1.

Microsoft currently sells Teams as part of its Microsoft 365 software bundle, which includes the Office productivity suite. Three years ago, Salesforce Inc.’s Slack unit filed a complaint over the practice in the European Union. Germany-based videoconferencing provider Alfaview submitted a similar complaint in early July.

The concerns raised by Microsoft’s rivals prompted the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, to launch an antitrust probe into the matter. The commission believes that the fact Teams is bundled with Office may give the former service an unfair “distribution advantage” over competitors.

The changes that Microsoft announced for Teams today aim to address the EU’s concerns. On Oct. 1, the company will unbundle Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365. Teams will be sold as a standalone product in the EU, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

“We do this not with the sense that this will necessarily resolve all concerns, whether from the Commission or our competitors, but we believe this is a constructive step that can start to lead to immediate and meaningful changes in the market,” Linde wrote.

Microsoft 365 is available in multiple editions geared towards organizations of different sizes. The exact manner in which Teams will be unbundled from the suite will vary between editions.

According to Microsoft, the enterprise editions of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 will be sold without Teams to new customers. The affected editions’ price will be lowered by €2 per user per month. For enterprises that wish to use Teams, Microsoft will make the service available on a standalone basis for €5 per user per month. 

The Microsoft 365 editions designed for small businesses and frontline teams, or teams that do most of their work away from a computer, will also be updated. Microsoft will continue to offer those product editions with Teams included. However, small businesses and frontline teams will also have the option to buy the software suite without Teams at a lower price.

Microsoft’s product bundling practices aren’t the only focus of the EU’s recently launched probe into its productivity business. As part of the investigation, regulators have also raised concerns that the company might be limiting Microsoft 365’s interoperability with rival services. The product changes announced today aim to address those concerns as well.

In the Teams interface, users can edit documents using embedded versions of Office applications. Microsoft said today that it will allow rivals to offer a similar feature in their services. “We will develop a new method for hosting the Office web applications within competing apps and services much like Microsoft accomplishes in Teams,” Linde wrote.

Microsoft is also updating its developer documentation as part of the move. In particular, it will create new technical content explaining how data can be moved from Teams to external services. The content will be released alongside “support resources” designed to help developers use Microsoft 365’s application programming interfaces. 

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