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Comment by tremon | Hacker News Reader

No, they're arguing that since Microsoft has a monopoly on office productivity software[0], adding new features to it that are in direction competition with other products is anti-competitive behaviour.

And they are right about that. Microsoft has been repeatedly convicted for this behaviour (Windows Desktop -> Internet Explorer, and Windows Desktop -> Windows Media Player). Trying to argue otherwise would, IMNSHO, be silly. The only valid question remains, does Slack's offering itself (corporate IM) fall under the office productivity umbrella or not?

[0] and no, you do not have to own 100% of the market before being considered a monopoly

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The issue in those cases was that the bundled products were OS-enforced defaults. In order to avoid using Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, you have to specifically intervene and customize your computer to change what happens when you click on links or open media files. I'm not entirely sold on that argument either, and it should be noted that IE's market share got eaten in non-EU markets as much as EU ones, but it makes some sense.

I don't think there's a comparable concern here. Teams won't open incidentally in the course of making a Powerpoint; there's no way for me to end up using it without an affirmative decision that it's the right messaging tool for me.

The relevant EU law is about abusing your dominance in one area to push unrelated services.

Slack probably have a pretty good case, but it's gonna take years so hopefully they have a plan for dealing with this in the interim.

This reasoning seems weird to me, and your examples aren't helping things. Like, sending off an OS in 2020 that had no browser or media player would obviously be extremely silly, and would present a terrible user experience for people.

I just can't see including a browser in an OS as some evil practice. It just seems like obvious good sense.

> adding new features to it that are in direction competition with other products is anti-competitive behaviour.

Probably any new feature you could think to add to Office exists somewhere on the internet already, in some form. Is MS just not allowed to add new things now?

Or what if MS manages to add something first, then an upstart competitor appears right after? Does it not count as anti-competitive then?

I'm guessing you aren't European? Windows shipped (still does? I use Linux now) a piece of software that let you pick what browser you wanted. It was a very simple thing, just click and download the browser you prefer. I don't see how, after installing your operating system where you click through a bunch of dialogues already, clicking through one more isn't a 2020 experience, especially when the alternative is to open IE to download Firefox or Chrome.

Sadly the browser choice thing went away at some point (maybe Windows 8?)

A shame really, it was probably a better installation experience for alternative browsers than having to use IE!

I don't actually remember that many dialogues the last time I installed windows. It would be pretty obnoxious if there was a dialogue for every bundled program or feature that nominally competes with others: browser, media player, text editor, shell, drawing app, firewall, anti-malware, app store, etc. There's probably a least a couple dozen programs in that category.

It's not really clear to me why a few of these application types (like browser and media player) have been singled out in the past, but others are given a pass.

As long as third party programs can be treated the same as first party ones once installed (e.g. default program preferences) I don't really see bundling as inherently anti-competitive.

I would need to double check, but I don't think Android even comes with a non "service" Video Player/Photo Viewer/Music Player. Its Google Photos/Youtube(Music).

The AOSP ones are just barely maintained.

Except Teams isn’t even a new feature.

MS has had Lync and Skype for the longest time. And MSN messenger goes back to the 90s.

In fact, Microsoft has had chat apps as part of their suite since before the company that eventually released Slack even existed.

This makes no sense to me. An iPhone without a browser? There are a dozen other random apps and features in O365. Is bundling or building of these features prohibited because Microsoft Access competes with Airtable? I’d argue Teams is half zoom half chat. It’s about as similar to Slack as Access is to Airtable.

Even the selling separately argument seems absurd. How is this any different than adding another Office SKU?

According to https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/office-suites--370 Google holds more marketshare with G Suite with 59.91%, compared to Microsoft Office 365 with 39.96%

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