Microsoft Teams decouples from Office 365 suite globally
- Reference: 1712053685
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/02/milcrosoft_teams_license_changes_global/
- Source link:
During the pandemic lockdowns, Microsoft hoped Teams would zoom past competing collaboration tools. But in 2020, Slack [1]complained that bundling Teams into Office 365 licenses was unfair, leading to a European antitrust investigation.
After [2]unbundling Teams last year for those in the European Union and Switzerland, on April 1 Microsoft made the same arrangement available everywhere – no joke.
[3]
"Globally consistent licensing helps ensure clarity for customers and streamline decision making and negotiations," Microsoft [4]announced on Monday.
[5]
[6]
"To that end, we are now updating the way Microsoft 365, Office 365, and Teams are licensed outside of Europe in keeping with the recent changes in the EEA [European Economic Area]. Starting today, we are introducing 1) a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites that do not include Teams in regions outside the EEA and Switzerland, and 2) a new standalone Teams offering for Enterprise customers in those regions."
The move leaves users with the option to carry on as normal, remove Teams from licenses and enjoy a small discount, or buy it as a standalone product.
[7]
That appears to be good news for Slack, Zoom, and others that are looking to lure Microsoft customers to their own collaboration apps. However, Google told us last year that Microsoft's concession of unbundling Teams from Office 365 in the EEA was " [8]too little, too late " as the tool had already amassed million of users.
[9]EU antitrust cops probe Microsoft ties between Entra ID and 365 services
[10]Microsoft defends barging in on Chrome with pop-up ads pushing Bing, GPT-4
[11]Microsoft forges One Teams App To Rule Them All
[12]Microsoft 365's add-on avalanche is putting the squeeze on customers
The Coalition for Fair Software, a lobby group believed to be backed by Google and AWS, pointed out that the change made to Teams by Microsoft comes amid growing interest from competition regulators in the vendor's wider licensing policies with regard to [13]Office 365 and Azure .
In a statement, executive director Ryan Triplette, said: "By simply extending the changes offered in Europe in August 2023, this announcement pays lip service to fair competition but leaves interoperability and licensing restrictions in place that prevent true customer choice. Despite the shortcomings of the terms, they demonstrate that Microsoft is capable of making changes when held accountable by regulators.
"Microsoft's restrictive software licensing practices extend well beyond Teams and are used to drive up costs and lock in customers to their products throughout the cloud stack, from Azure to security offerings. We urge all regulators, including the US Federal Trade Commission, to take action to address these practices and improve consumer choice."
In the case of Teams, it took an EU investigation to force Redmond into action. Now the rest of the world will enjoy the benefits of its action, even if calls for changes to Teams licensing were not called out as an issue elsewhere. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/22/slack_versus_teams/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/27/its_official_ec_to_stick/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zgwrnb8e35mgf7SH@TE1sgAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/Microsoft365-Teams-WW
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zgwrnb8e35mgf7SH@TE1sgAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zgwrnb8e35mgf7SH@TE1sgAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/applications&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zgwrnb8e35mgf7SH@TE1sgAAAAg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/15/google_exec_microsoft_teams_concession/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/22/eu_antitrust_microsoft_entra_id/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/15/chrome_bing_microsoft_pop_ups/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/14/unified_teams_debuts/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/microsoft_365_add_on_cost/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/06/21/google_ftc_microsoft_anticompetitive_cloud/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Price reductions?
Don't forget about spinning Azure out into a separate company. OneDrive, too. And SQL Server while we're at it.
Re: Price reductions?
It does annoy me that I can't use a rival cloud provider with Word as seamlessly as I can use OneDrive. Surely that's a competition issue too?
Re: Word and Cloud
Autosave used to work locally. These days and even with the standalone version of word, it insists on saving to a OnDrive system.
There goes working off-line.
FSCK Microsoft.
So EU can't push mighty US megacorps around?
But you moaners will also get the benefits of this regulation.
You're welcome!
" The move leaves users with the option to carry on as normal, remove Teams from licenses and enjoy a small discount, or buy it as a standalone product. "
You mean there is an actual discount... it's not the same price? Or even more expensive? I'm sure there must be much wailing and gnashing of teeth at Redmond of late.
At the moment it looks like Teams Essentials (which I presume is the nearest equivalent to what's bundled) is £39.60/year/license. I can't currently see a non-Teams equivalent to our Microsoft 365 Business Premium bundle. There are Microsoft 365 plans "without Audio Conferencing" which are the same price as those with it - it's not clear though if that is a Teams distinction or something else. So, MS licensing as clear as mud, as usual.
"The Coalition for Fair Software [..] backed by Google and AWS"
This kind of shenanigans should be illegal.
It is morally dishonest to front a so-called non-profit group for the sole purpose of destroying your competitor.
Re: "The Coalition for Fair Software [..] backed by Google and AWS"
Said the same thing the other week on the thread about Apple being sued for antitrust violations. It's a good thing that the companies are being picked up for doing it, but the fact that 2 out of 3 of Microsoft, Apple and Google are ganging up on the third over antitrust is about as hypocritical as it gets.
Re: "The Coalition for Fair Software [..] backed by Google and AWS"
s/morally dishonest/standard practice/g
Shame that...
the europeans didn't mandate the cost of a teams license plus the cost of the office(sans teams) licence had to be greater than the highest of a slack, zoom etc license plus office(sans teams) license. A bit of positive punishment. ;)
Personally teams, slack, zoom the rest of that scurvy crew can be consigned to the deep as a massive waste of time and productivity drain much worse than enduring 100 powerpoint slides.
Actually office suites in general could be turfed overboard too.
I suspect the vast majority of licenses are only used for word processing; spreadsheets are beyond the ken of most users and of those the ones that think otherwise are a danger to themselves and others.
Presentation tools like powerpoint are inherently lethal.
The DTP tools basically only produce visual emetics or cathartics.
The dumbed down (and usually dodgy) database applications have already wrought enough havoc that consigning them to oblivion would be to everyone's benefit.
The prospect of adding AI assisted user coded applications (low code) to this nightmare is the hellish prospect of superadditive combination of artificial and natural imbecility.
Price reductions?
Or just an extra mug's tax for all the plebs stuck with Teams entrenched into their organisations?
Too little, too late indeed.. I would prefer to see Borkzilla unbundled from itself. Split Office 355, Teams, LinkedIn, GitHub and Windows into separate companies.