What is the point of Microsoft now admitting that it would abolish the product bundling of Microsoft Teams with the group’s Office products?! The legal and competitive market problems will not be solved by the fact that Microsoft announced shortly after the opening of the European antitrust proceedings that it will change its bundling policy. Quite the opposite: such an approach makes it clear that the group is not actually interested in giving users the right to choose or in promoting free competition for the development of the best available technology. In conclusion, this approach certainly cannot be described as “proactive change”, as Microsoft describes the concession in a press release. Nor does such an approach change Microsoft’s general corporate policy of first creating facts on the market by violating competition rules and then giving in in a way that attracts publicity and media attention in a positive way. The damage to technology development and effective cybersecurity has already been done, and not only in the field of web-based communication technology. Quite bad! See my latest blogpost on Wolters Kluwer Competition Law Blog: https://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2023/09/13/the-case-of-microsoft-why-software-monocultures-also-play-a-role-beyond-antitrust-considerations/
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