7 ms·

I'm a Microsoft critic on lots of fronts, but I can't understand how people consider bundling teams with office to be anti competitive. Isn't team communicatio

I'm a Microsoft critic on lots of fronts, but I can't understand how people consider bundling teams with office to be anti competitive. Isn't team communication essentially a modern feature of a productivity suite that you'd expect to see included? Why is it not considered to be meeting market demand. I consider it a plus to have everything integrated together (even if I don't particularly like Teams). What's the legal or moral basis for calling it anticompetitive? If anything it feels like a normal result of competitive pressure.

ChrisBland 3y ago
It is a plus to have them integrated, I believe the issue is m$ was basically giving it away for free for anyone who has the office suite. As a CTO faced with reducing spend on SaaS, do you cut slack for essentially a free clone of it? Not a hard call, but that becomes anticompetitive behavior. Similar to the shipping of IE with windows back in the day.
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  > I believe the issue is m$ was basically giving it away for free for anyone who has the office suite. That's the OP's point: what you call "giving away for free for anyone who has the office suite", I call "adding another feature to the office suite". Particularly for features which everyone understands are now just necessary in the space, it's a little weird to say "you can't add new features to your software, that would be anticompetitive".
- Terretta 3y ago
  Thinking Teams is a clone of Slack suggests neither Office nor Teams is being fully used. Teams is a re-imagining of UI atop SharePoint and SfB/Lync APIs or functionality we all loathed, and does a not terrible job of it. When you realize that "screen sharing" is now "app sharing" instead, and every user can collaborate, a light bulb goes off. When you realize you can offer Teams with web-based office suite collab at $3/seat to remote collaborators, fireworks go off. When you realize all of this is fully compliant for regulated industries, there are no other choices, because the incumbents didn't bother becoming compliant for actually collaborating. Most tools in this space are siloed chat, or presentation viewer, and god bless for permissioned file spaces. As far as we've been able to find, both at the 2nd largest bank in free world and a startup of just dozens, the M365 E5 suite with Teams backed by SharePoint makes this all work together for role based group access to real time collaboration at scale while remaining seamlessly compliant.
barrkel 3y ago
You can't understand leveraging one distribution channel to expand into another market segment could possibly be anti-competitive? Like using Windows to expand into web browsers?
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  I guess I just consider them the same market segment. We don't get upset at car manufacturers when they bundle wheels and tires with their cars.
  - avianlyric 3y ago
    Last I checked it was pretty hard to use a car without wheels or tires. But some how the world managed to use Office for decades without Teams.
    - Analemma_ 3y ago
      But markets change. Video calling and team-based chatrooms weren't considered necessary in the space before, and now they are. When market demands change, products could change accordingly-- the point of the debate here is it's a little odd to say Microsoft isn't allowed to add new features to their software that the market is asking for.
      - avianlyric 3y ago
        What? Why does that mean team communication tool must be bundled with office tools? They’re hardly “just adding features” to existing software. It not like teams is just a “feature” in Word or Excel, it’s entirely separate. Do you think that Office and Teams should be bundled with Windows as well? So your only option is to pay a subscription for windows, and get Office and Teams “for free”?
- michaelt 3y ago
  It's a bit confusing to young people, because in this millennium enforcement has been so lax as to be almost nonexistent. I don't see anyone prosecuting Google for bundling Chrome with Android and pushing Chrome in Search, or prosecuting Apple for bundling Safari and iCloud with the iPhone, or prosecuting Amazon for bundling streaming video with Prime, or prosecuting Microsoft for pushing Edge with Windows.
fidotron 3y ago
It is anti competitive because it destroys the potential market for others. The correct course of action is to have an API that allows other apps to integrate and provide this feature in Office. To give an example, Google, when adding storage APIs to Android KitKat worked closely with competitors to Google Drive to ensure that the storage API worked with third party providers. Google are not perfect, but that is a fine example of the right general idea.
- ballenf 3y ago
  But it seems to be in denial that markets evolve. Smartphones include features that have relegated to niche markets the consumer camera market, consumer dictation equipment, mp3 players, navigation devices, etc.
- kwanbix 3y ago
  And why are all the other office suites allowed to have video/chat?
  - nicce 3y ago
    How many office suites like that there are competitive for Word et al.?
    - 542458 3y ago
      Google, for one. They have integrated chat, and a capable document platform.
      - avianlyric 3y ago
        I don’t think any of Googles many abortive chat applications are ever a good example of company acting anti-competitively. Honestly Google seemed to have made a sport out of shooting themselves in the foot. With regards to Google’s productivity suite vs Office. Googles stuff is very impressive, but honestly not even in the same league as Office. Googles stuff is pretty useless for anything beyond pretty basic editing, and I say that as some that used Googles offerings extensively in a professional environment for many years.
deutschepost 3y ago
Because Teams is not an alternative client to a messaging platform. It is the platform. You may realize that they are still allowed to bundle Outlook because it is just an alternative client for E-Mail. Every business which is in the Office365 ecosystem will never use a competitor to teams, because it is just bundled with Office "for free". There were competitors before teams was a thing, but the regulators realized if Microsoft would go forward with this, an entire Market Segment would just die. Making an Antitrust Case out of this, not only protects current communication system providers but also opens the market up for more competition.
- ghaff 3y ago
  It's the same story with Google Workplace. If I'm writing the checks, you'd better have a really good rationale for why I should pay for some alternative collaboration component rather than using the (typically well-integrated) one that comes as part of the suite. Some people have individual preferences--even strong ones--but I'm not sure how much there is to truly distinguish the major solutions at this point.
gruturo 3y ago
It's a piece of junk but my employer went for it since we're already using the M358 suite, so there are no extra licenses, no extra contracts, no extra procurements, and no extra costs. The product performs very poorly because its quality is not a major driver of its sales - many if not most customers select it for the reasons I just mentioned above. This causes Microsoft's competitors to not be considered at all, losing customers (and here you have the anticompetitive aspect), while Teams lags and underperforms because quality is hardly a metric.
diffeomorphism 3y ago
Bundling <new function> with <random product> even for free is not problematic. Bundling <new function> with <extremely dominant product> is extremely problematic for obvious legal and moral reasons.
- version_five 3y ago
  If you're serious that seems ridiculous. You're suggesting it's a problem for a dominant product to release new functionality? Like once something gets big enough it can't improve anymore because that would be anticompetitive? I don't see the obvious legal and moral reasons.
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    Hackernews has higher standards for discussions. Attacking strawmen is not worth either of our time.
    - tbrownaw 3y ago
      Then perhaps you could explain how the comment you're replying to misrepresented your earlier comment that it's in reply to?
- sebzim4500 3y ago
  Apple is expected to add a new type of lens to the iPhone in a few weeks, which will signficantly improve optical zoom and decrease the utility of many point and shoot cameras. Under your morality, should Tim Cook be thrown in jail for this?
severino 3y ago
I think it's anticompetitive because MSTeams is a software of a very low quality, lacking lots of features found in other software for years, yet everybody is using it because... nothing. So how can we encourage competition if the most used software in a field got there not because of its merit, but because of corporate practices?
michaelt 3y ago
> Isn't team communication essentially a modern feature of a productivity suite that you'd expect to see included? Seems to me a rather circular definition, because I'm not sure anyone except Microsoft has a 'productivity suite'? Other than Google, but I wouldn't count gmail and a dozen cancelled chat platforms as an IRC/Slack competitor except in the very loosest sense.
- trelane 3y ago
  > Seems to me a rather circular definition, because I'm not sure anyone except Microsoft has a 'productivity suite'? LibreOffice and its descendents (e.g. Collabora) spring to mind immediately. There are a few. Apple has its own tools (Keynote, etc) but I don't think they're necessarily a suite. There aren't going to be a lot of new productivity suites, due to how overwhelmingly dominant Microsoft is. In fact, the key metric for any office site isn't its features or numerical prowess, but rather how well it can read and write Microsoft office files.
housemusicfan 3y ago
It's funny how for many years the push to switch to almost-but-not-quite as good OSS solutions has been the cost savings. Then MS gives Teams away for free and all of a sudden it's "oh those evil monopolists". Would it be any different if Teams was OSS? The client is basically worthless to them. The licensing fee covers hosting costs. This was the same 20 years ago. Netscape lost the browser wars not because of bundling. Netscape lost because Netscape Navigator 4 was crashy garbage, possibly the worst browser ever made. The reason Firefox was developed was because Netscape was so intolerably bad, an alternative to the alternative needed developed. You know the old saying, "If you can't beat them, go cry to the European Commission."
jzb 3y ago
"I can't understand how people consider bundling teams with office to be anti competitive" It's a judgment call to be sure. Google has integrated Meet with their office tools, but nobody (AFAIK) has shouted about it being anti-competitive. Does Microsoft block or make it more difficult to add Zoom info to a meeting in Outlook? It's pretty easy with an add-on to add that info via GMail. If they're adding barriers to integration, that would be strong reason to consider the bundling anti-competitive. I briefly used Office/Teams when I was at Intel. My recollection was that Teams was really tightly integrated as a Slack/Zoom replacement through the whole suite.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
> I'm a Microsoft critic on lots of fronts, but I can't understand how people consider bundling teams with office to be anti competitive. Isn't team communication essentially a modern feature of a productivity suite that you'd expect to see included? No. Team communication can happen just fine without some ridiculous chat program. Many businesses just want office and have other methods of communication, and want to use other chat apps. If teams is included in Office, it will make it harder for other companies to sell their products. People should pay for what they want, and not get a bunch of useless, bloated junk along with it.

ChrisBland 3y ago

It is a plus to have them integrated, I believe the issue is m$ was basically giving it away for free for anyone who has the office suite. As a CTO faced with reducing spend on SaaS, do you cut slack for essentially a free clone of it? Not a hard call, but that becomes anticompetitive behavior. Similar to the shipping of IE with windows back in the day.

Analemma_ 3y ago
> I believe the issue is m$ was basically giving it away for free for anyone who has the office suite. That's the OP's point: what you call "giving away for free for anyone who has the office suite", I call "adding another feature to the office suite". Particularly for features which everyone understands are now just necessary in the space, it's a little weird to say "you can't add new features to your software, that would be anticompetitive".
Terretta 3y ago
Thinking Teams is a clone of Slack suggests neither Office nor Teams is being fully used. Teams is a re-imagining of UI atop SharePoint and SfB/Lync APIs or functionality we all loathed, and does a not terrible job of it. When you realize that "screen sharing" is now "app sharing" instead, and every user can collaborate, a light bulb goes off. When you realize you can offer Teams with web-based office suite collab at $3/seat to remote collaborators, fireworks go off. When you realize all of this is fully compliant for regulated industries, there are no other choices, because the incumbents didn't bother becoming compliant for actually collaborating. Most tools in this space are siloed chat, or presentation viewer, and god bless for permissioned file spaces. As far as we've been able to find, both at the 2nd largest bank in free world and a startup of just dozens, the M365 E5 suite with Teams backed by SharePoint makes this all work together for role based group access to real time collaboration at scale while remaining seamlessly compliant.

barrkel 3y ago

You can't understand leveraging one distribution channel to expand into another market segment could possibly be anti-competitive? Like using Windows to expand into web browsers?

sebzim4500 3y ago
I guess I just consider them the same market segment. We don't get upset at car manufacturers when they bundle wheels and tires with their cars.
- avianlyric 3y ago
  Last I checked it was pretty hard to use a car without wheels or tires. But some how the world managed to use Office for decades without Teams.
  - Analemma_ 3y ago
    But markets change. Video calling and team-based chatrooms weren't considered necessary in the space before, and now they are. When market demands change, products could change accordingly-- the point of the debate here is it's a little odd to say Microsoft isn't allowed to add new features to their software that the market is asking for.
    - avianlyric 3y ago
      What? Why does that mean team communication tool must be bundled with office tools? They’re hardly “just adding features” to existing software. It not like teams is just a “feature” in Word or Excel, it’s entirely separate. Do you think that Office and Teams should be bundled with Windows as well? So your only option is to pay a subscription for windows, and get Office and Teams “for free”?
michaelt 3y ago
It's a bit confusing to young people, because in this millennium enforcement has been so lax as to be almost nonexistent. I don't see anyone prosecuting Google for bundling Chrome with Android and pushing Chrome in Search, or prosecuting Apple for bundling Safari and iCloud with the iPhone, or prosecuting Amazon for bundling streaming video with Prime, or prosecuting Microsoft for pushing Edge with Windows.

fidotron 3y ago

It is anti competitive because it destroys the potential market for others. The correct course of action is to have an API that allows other apps to integrate and provide this feature in Office. To give an example, Google, when adding storage APIs to Android KitKat worked closely with competitors to Google Drive to ensure that the storage API worked with third party providers. Google are not perfect, but that is a fine example of the right general idea.

ballenf 3y ago
But it seems to be in denial that markets evolve. Smartphones include features that have relegated to niche markets the consumer camera market, consumer dictation equipment, mp3 players, navigation devices, etc.
kwanbix 3y ago
And why are all the other office suites allowed to have video/chat?
- nicce 3y ago
  How many office suites like that there are competitive for Word et al.?
  - 542458 3y ago
    Google, for one. They have integrated chat, and a capable document platform.
    - avianlyric 3y ago
      I don’t think any of Googles many abortive chat applications are ever a good example of company acting anti-competitively. Honestly Google seemed to have made a sport out of shooting themselves in the foot. With regards to Google’s productivity suite vs Office. Googles stuff is very impressive, but honestly not even in the same league as Office. Googles stuff is pretty useless for anything beyond pretty basic editing, and I say that as some that used Googles offerings extensively in a professional environment for many years.

deutschepost 3y ago

Because Teams is not an alternative client to a messaging platform. It is the platform. You may realize that they are still allowed to bundle Outlook because it is just an alternative client for E-Mail. Every business which is in the Office365 ecosystem will never use a competitor to teams, because it is just bundled with Office "for free". There were competitors before teams was a thing, but the regulators realized if Microsoft would go forward with this, an entire Market Segment would just die. Making an Antitrust Case out of this, not only protects current communication system providers but also opens the market up for more competition.

ghaff 3y ago
It's the same story with Google Workplace. If I'm writing the checks, you'd better have a really good rationale for why I should pay for some alternative collaboration component rather than using the (typically well-integrated) one that comes as part of the suite. Some people have individual preferences--even strong ones--but I'm not sure how much there is to truly distinguish the major solutions at this point.

gruturo 3y ago

It's a piece of junk but my employer went for it since we're already using the M358 suite, so there are no extra licenses, no extra contracts, no extra procurements, and no extra costs. The product performs very poorly because its quality is not a major driver of its sales - many if not most customers select it for the reasons I just mentioned above. This causes Microsoft's competitors to not be considered at all, losing customers (and here you have the anticompetitive aspect), while Teams lags and underperforms because quality is hardly a metric.

diffeomorphism 3y ago

Bundling <new function> with <random product> even for free is not problematic. Bundling <new function> with <extremely dominant product> is extremely problematic for obvious legal and moral reasons.

version_five 3y ago
If you're serious that seems ridiculous. You're suggesting it's a problem for a dominant product to release new functionality? Like once something gets big enough it can't improve anymore because that would be anticompetitive? I don't see the obvious legal and moral reasons.
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  Hackernews has higher standards for discussions. Attacking strawmen is not worth either of our time.
  - tbrownaw 3y ago
    Then perhaps you could explain how the comment you're replying to misrepresented your earlier comment that it's in reply to?
sebzim4500 3y ago
Apple is expected to add a new type of lens to the iPhone in a few weeks, which will signficantly improve optical zoom and decrease the utility of many point and shoot cameras. Under your morality, should Tim Cook be thrown in jail for this?

severino 3y ago

I think it's anticompetitive because MSTeams is a software of a very low quality, lacking lots of features found in other software for years, yet everybody is using it because... nothing. So how can we encourage competition if the most used software in a field got there not because of its merit, but because of corporate practices?

michaelt 3y ago

> Isn't team communication essentially a modern feature of a productivity suite that you'd expect to see included? Seems to me a rather circular definition, because I'm not sure anyone except Microsoft has a 'productivity suite'? Other than Google, but I wouldn't count gmail and a dozen cancelled chat platforms as an IRC/Slack competitor except in the very loosest sense.

trelane 3y ago
> Seems to me a rather circular definition, because I'm not sure anyone except Microsoft has a 'productivity suite'? LibreOffice and its descendents (e.g. Collabora) spring to mind immediately. There are a few. Apple has its own tools (Keynote, etc) but I don't think they're necessarily a suite. There aren't going to be a lot of new productivity suites, due to how overwhelmingly dominant Microsoft is. In fact, the key metric for any office site isn't its features or numerical prowess, but rather how well it can read and write Microsoft office files.

housemusicfan 3y ago

It's funny how for many years the push to switch to almost-but-not-quite as good OSS solutions has been the cost savings. Then MS gives Teams away for free and all of a sudden it's "oh those evil monopolists". Would it be any different if Teams was OSS? The client is basically worthless to them. The licensing fee covers hosting costs. This was the same 20 years ago. Netscape lost the browser wars not because of bundling. Netscape lost because Netscape Navigator 4 was crashy garbage, possibly the worst browser ever made. The reason Firefox was developed was because Netscape was so intolerably bad, an alternative to the alternative needed developed. You know the old saying, "If you can't beat them, go cry to the European Commission."

jzb 3y ago

"I can't understand how people consider bundling teams with office to be anti competitive" It's a judgment call to be sure. Google has integrated Meet with their office tools, but nobody (AFAIK) has shouted about it being anti-competitive. Does Microsoft block or make it more difficult to add Zoom info to a meeting in Outlook? It's pretty easy with an add-on to add that info via GMail. If they're adding barriers to integration, that would be strong reason to consider the bundling anti-competitive. I briefly used Office/Teams when I was at Intel. My recollection was that Teams was really tightly integrated as a Slack/Zoom replacement through the whole suite.

vouaobrasil 3y ago

> I'm a Microsoft critic on lots of fronts, but I can't understand how people consider bundling teams with office to be anti competitive. Isn't team communication essentially a modern feature of a productivity suite that you'd expect to see included? No. Team communication can happen just fine without some ridiculous chat program. Many businesses just want office and have other methods of communication, and want to use other chat apps. If teams is included in Office, it will make it harder for other companies to sell their products. People should pay for what they want, and not get a bunch of useless, bloated junk along with it.