The job messaging platform Slack said Wednesday that it filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission alleging that Microsoft is illegally linking its own product to its dominant Office software suite.
San Francisco-based Slack said the tech giant is abusing its dominance of the market and hurting competition by promoting its own messaging service, Teams, as part of Microsoft Office.
According to the complaint, Teams’ integration with Office hides its true cost for business customers.
“Slack just wants fair competition and a level playing field,” said David Schellhase, Slack’s general counsel.
Schellhase said the move is similar to Microsoft’s efforts in the 1990s to link its browser to the Windows operating system, which led to a massive antitrust case.
“Microsoft is reverting to past behavior,” he said.
“They created a weak, copycat product and linked it to their dominant Office product, forced to install it, and blocked its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behavior during the” browser wars. “
“Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to ensure that Microsoft cannot continue to illegally harness its power from one market to another by bundling or linking products.”
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.
[AFP]
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Nice update