March is a key month in relation to the expected DMA application (Digital Markets Act), European Digital Markets Act. As you may remember, a list of digital services and products that would be affected was published last September, grouped into a total of six companies:

• Alphabet (parent of Google)
• Amazon
• Manzana
• Bytedance
• Soccer goal
• Microsoft

However, and as we have already told you, The measures do not apply to the company, but to the product or service that exceeds the limits defined by the standard which of course includes different types of measures depending on their nature. To be clear, the same rules cannot be applied to an instant messaging service as to an operating system. And of course, the fact that a product or service from a technology company is the majority option in a particular market does not prevent other products and services from the same company from having much more modest market shares in other activities.

A fairly obvious example of this and precisely related to this innovation is found in Microsoft. So if we talk about desktop operating systems, it is indisputable that Windows is the main reference in its market market share 73% based on StatCounter data from January 2024.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – OS Market Share

Now, when we talk about the Internet information search market, where Microsoft is trying to take a piece of the pie from the almighty Google, we see that Bing’s market share is 3.43% in January 2024, also according to StatCounter data:

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Search Engine Market Share

of course, they don’t have much sense that Bing, to continue with the same example, must submit to regulation of a service that dominates the market only because another product from the same company does so in its respective market.

European regulatory authorities, however, opened the door at the request of the companies concerned some research about specific products and services that although they initially had to submit to the rules set by the DMA, they could opt out for various reasons.

Well, after months of rumors about it, rumors that mostly pointed in what appears to be the right direction, Bloomberg reports that The European Union exempts Apple and Microsoft from adapting iMessage and Bing to DMA rules. This will avoid both companies having to add both services to their “affected” lists, which, as you can see in the image above, are already substantial.

The most remarkable thing at this point is undoubtedly that Apple will be able to avoid having to offer interoperability in iMessage if it so chooses, which would also fulfill the already widespread demand for the company to offer RCS messaging within iMessage. Until recently, Cupertino’s position was totally negative (surprising no one), but last November there was a 180-degree turn, when the technology company said that they would do it, and that it would arrive at the end of 2024. At that time, the decision of European regulators was still awaited . Now that iMessage has managed to bypass DMA, we’ll have to wait and see if Apple keeps what it said in November or changes its mind.