Microsoft denies any wrongdoing, but the accusation from Slack echoes the antitrust case Microsoft faced two decades ago in the US over bundling Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Slack is accusing Microsoft of breaking antitrust law in the European Union by bundling its competing business chat service, Microsoft Teams, with Office, and is calling on European regulators to investigate. “Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force-installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers,” San Francisco-based Slack said in a statement. Slack’s accusation echoes the antitrust case Microsoft faced two decades ago in the US over bundling Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system while giving customers no option to uninstall it. The Justice Department sued in 1998, claiming the bundling helped the tech giant achieve an illegal monopoly in the browser market. SEE ALSO: KFC to 3D Print Chicken Using Lab-Grown ‘Meat of the Future’ The case led a US judge to order the breakup of Microsoft. However, the ruling was later overturned for a lesser penalty that only forced the company to open access to its software APIs. In the EU, regulators also scrutinized Microsoft’s practice of bundling IE into Windows.
