Microsoft is likely to face a European Union (EU) anti-trust investigation as regulators raise their scrutiny of the technology company, according to Reuters.
In October 2021, the EU's anti-trust regulators sent out questionnaires to Microsoft's rivals to deem whether Microsoft bundling Teams into office as a free product has given it an unfair advantage following a complaint by Slack.
At the time, Reuters said that the survey focused on the years between 2016 and 2021.
It is now understood that the EU Commission sent out another round of questionnaires last month as a follow-up to last year.
Reuters' sources suggest this is a sign that the EU is preparing to go ahead with a formal investigation.
Slack first argued to the EU in July 2020, where the company accused Microsoft of "crushing competition" and "illegally abusing" its position within the software market.
Slack claims that Microsoft force installs its Teams platform on user devices and makes it difficult to remove due to the tying of the Teams collaboration product to the market-dominant Office productivity suite.
Slack, which was acquired by Salesforce last year, believes that by allegedly carrying out the above practices, Microsoft is in breach of European Union laws about fair competition.
The collaboration company isn't the only one that has called on the EU to launch an investigation into Microsoft.
In November 2021, around 30 European software firms united to take on Microsoft, again calling the US giant's business practices anti-competitive.
The group dubbed themselves a 'coalition for a level playing field' and specifically accused Microsoft of shutting out competitors by tightly integrating OneDrive and Teams with Windows.
