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According to people familiar with the matter, Microsoft wants to address European Commission antitrust concerns prompted by Slack, Salesforce’s workspace messaging app.

Doing so could help the tech giant avert a formal EU antitrust investigation opening, highlighting Microsoft’s newfound willingness to work out concerns with watchdogs instead of fighting them as it has done in the last decade.

Reuters reported the news based on private sources. Microsoft found itself targeted by the European Commission in 2020 after Slack alleged that the tech giant unfairly integrated Teams into Office.

Microsoft said it beat Slack to the punch

Microsoft released Teams in 2017, intending to cash in on the fast-growing workplace collaboration market. According to Reuters, Microsoft has made an initial offer of concessions to ease the latest EU competition watchdog’s concerns.

Microsoft has been hit with €2.2 billion in EU fines over the past decade for business practices affecting competing products.

The tech giant has previously said that Teams’ videoconferencing features allowed it to gain popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Slack suffered for not having videoconferencing in its offering at the time.

Tech giant under scrutiny

Reuters reached out to the European Commission for a statement, but the antitrust regulator declined to comment. According to Reuters, the European Commission sent out a second batch of questionnaires to Microsoft competitors in October to get more details on its product bundling and interoperability practices.

The move would suggest the watchdog is preparing grounds to launch a formal probe. Microsoft is also under scrutiny due to separate antitrust complaints related to cloud computing and the integration of OneDrive and Windows.