Microsoft has confirmed that it will sell Teams and Office separately around the globe.
The announcement comes six months after Microsoft unbundled the products in Europe, aiming to avoid an EU antitrust fine.
That threat followed a 2020 complaint by collaborations competitor Slack, and the European Commission soon started a formal investigation.
While the antitrust ruling is yet to come, Microsoft aims to get ahead of the curve.
After unbundling the products – first brought together in 2017 – in Europe, it cited “feedback” from the European Commission in its decision to make the move global.
According to Reuters, a Microsoft spokesperson stated:
To ensure clarity for our customers, we are extending the steps we took last year to unbundle Teams from M365 and O365 in the European Economic Area and Switzerland to customers globally.
"Doing so also addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardize their purchasing across geographies."
Slack raised the complaint as the COVID-19 pandemic and switch to remote working sparked a spike in revenue growth across the UC and collaborations market.
With many businesses already leveraging Microsoft Office, Teams soon became the go-to platform.
Indeed, the number of daily active users leveraging the UC solution surged from 20 million in November 2019 to 145 million in April 2021.
Now, Microsoft Teams has 320 million monthly active users worldwide.
A New Lineup of 365 Suites
Globally, Microsoft will introduce a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 packages that don’t include Teams – alongside a new standalone Teams offering for Enterprise customers.
As confirmed in a company blog post - cited by Reuters - Microsoft noted how these offerings will be available in “regions outside the EEA (European Economic Area) and Switzerland”.
From April 1, Microsoft Teams and Office users can switch to one of the new offerings or continue and renew their current licensing deal.
Prices for Office without Teams fall between $7.75 and $54.75 per user/month for commercial customers, depending on the package. Meanwhile, standalone Teams costs $5.25 per user/month.
However, those figures may vary across countries and currencies.
