4 ms·

How is it adding functionality a bad thing for the end user? Maybe Slack or Zoom should add office capabilities and try to compete on features and price?

TheRealPomax 3y ago
That's a completely different question. It is established fact that Microsoft is engaging in anti-trust behaviour as far as European law is concerned. Whether a company that's orders of magnitude smaller, with nowhere near the same reach and force, would be considered engaging in anti-trust if they did similar bundling is basically unrelated to why Microsoft unbundling their Teams product from Office would stop them from being further investigated. Past violations of the law don't magically stop having been violations just because you decided to stop violating the law.
- kwanbix 3y ago
  So why isn't Google forced to do the same? I mean, I feel (the bundling) is good for the end consumer, not bad. The real problem, IMHO, is that Zoom and Slack have crazy high prices for what they offer. WhatsApp is free, Signal is free, Telegram is free, Viber is free, Messenger is free, Skype is free, etc. Yes, you can say that you are product or whatever, in the end, for me, the value proposition that Slack and Zoom have is not worth their cost. Slack, is charging almost 15 euros per user per month! That is crazy expensive vs Google Suite, Office 365, Zoho Office, etc., etc. For me to consider Slack/Zoom, they should not cost more than 5 euros per month each. They should lower the price to get more customers, not keep this crazy high price.
  - TheRealPomax 3y ago
    ...what rock have you been living under? https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_17_1785 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_1... The EU investigates and metes out punitive measures to all companies that exploit their market position in the EU to prevent entry by, or to push out, competition though anti-trust practices. Whether the competition makes products that people want, or whether there even is any competition is entirely irrelevant to that, the crime is "breaking anti-trust law". Now of course, some of those fines are no more than a slap on the wrist, but some of them are properly "you fucked up hard and your business is on the line" high. Like Google getting fined 2.5 billion dollars. And in this case the EU is being pretty soft: Microsoft knew they were going to be hit with this order from the start, because they've already been through this several times in the past with their IE and Media Player bundling. Making the decision to not fine them is the curious part here, not the part part where the EU told them to do what they already told them to do several times in the past that they appealed, lost, and complied with. "Well why don't they go after Facebook then?" oh, you mean https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/IP_17_1369 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/IP_17_...? "Okay, well, why is Apple allowed to-"? oh you mean https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618264/eu-antitrust-case-apple-music-streaming-spotify-updated-statement-objections https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618264/eu-antitrust-cas... "Fine, but-" just stop. If a company violates EU anti-trust law, they're going to get investigated either by individual member states, or if the violation's significant enough, by the EU itself.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

That's a completely different question. It is established fact that Microsoft is engaging in anti-trust behaviour as far as European law is concerned. Whether a company that's orders of magnitude smaller, with nowhere near the same reach and force, would be considered engaging in anti-trust if they did similar bundling is basically unrelated to why Microsoft unbundling their Teams product from Office would stop them from being further investigated. Past violations of the law don't magically stop having been violations just because you decided to stop violating the law.

kwanbix 3y ago
So why isn't Google forced to do the same? I mean, I feel (the bundling) is good for the end consumer, not bad. The real problem, IMHO, is that Zoom and Slack have crazy high prices for what they offer. WhatsApp is free, Signal is free, Telegram is free, Viber is free, Messenger is free, Skype is free, etc. Yes, you can say that you are product or whatever, in the end, for me, the value proposition that Slack and Zoom have is not worth their cost. Slack, is charging almost 15 euros per user per month! That is crazy expensive vs Google Suite, Office 365, Zoho Office, etc., etc. For me to consider Slack/Zoom, they should not cost more than 5 euros per month each. They should lower the price to get more customers, not keep this crazy high price.
- TheRealPomax 3y ago
  ...what rock have you been living under? https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_17_1785 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/es/MEMO_1... The EU investigates and metes out punitive measures to all companies that exploit their market position in the EU to prevent entry by, or to push out, competition though anti-trust practices. Whether the competition makes products that people want, or whether there even is any competition is entirely irrelevant to that, the crime is "breaking anti-trust law". Now of course, some of those fines are no more than a slap on the wrist, but some of them are properly "you fucked up hard and your business is on the line" high. Like Google getting fined 2.5 billion dollars. And in this case the EU is being pretty soft: Microsoft knew they were going to be hit with this order from the start, because they've already been through this several times in the past with their IE and Media Player bundling. Making the decision to not fine them is the curious part here, not the part part where the EU told them to do what they already told them to do several times in the past that they appealed, lost, and complied with. "Well why don't they go after Facebook then?" oh, you mean https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/IP_17_1369 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/pl/IP_17_...? "Okay, well, why is Apple allowed to-"? oh you mean https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618264/eu-antitrust-case-apple-music-streaming-spotify-updated-statement-objections https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23618264/eu-antitrust-cas... "Fine, but-" just stop. If a company violates EU anti-trust law, they're going to get investigated either by individual member states, or if the violation's significant enough, by the EU itself.