The bullet goes through the church: Microsoft no longer bundles teams in its 365 subscriptions. Customers subscribing starting in October will need to purchase Teams separately.

What has been in the air for a long time was officially confirmed by Microsoft this morning. Teams will no longer be part of the 365 cloud package, as Office has been called since last year. The Wall Street Journal knows that Microsoft will make the adjustments starting in October. New 365 customers using Teams will need to add the video conferencing platform as an extra, nothing seems to change for your current subscription at first glance.

We don’t have to puzzle over the reason for this decision for long. The European Commission is breathing down Microsoft’s neck. Following a 2020 complaint from Slack, this is the first formal antitrust investigation into Microsoft in a decade. Choosing only eggs for its money, the software giant now decides to respond to Slack’s complaint in hopes the storm will subside too.

2 euros per month

The separation of Teams from 365 means Microsoft will have to reorganize its offerings. From October there will be new subscription formulas without teams, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, would cost two euros less per month. In these subscriptions, Teams will continue to be offered as a separate product.

Whether this will be enough to placate the European Commission remains to be seen. The price of the Teams-less subscriptions proved to be the biggest stumbling block during the negotiations. The investigation is ongoing and the committee will decide in the autumn whether to continue the process.