Microsoft has a strong quarter, but now Slack is accusing it of "bully bundling"
When the Slackbot is annoying AF... Microsoft reported 13% sales growth and an insane $11B+ in profit last quarter. But party pooper Slack hit it with regulatory drama on the same day. Slack thinks Microsoft's being anti-competitive, so it filed an antitrust complaint in the EU.
- The Slack-usation: Microsoft is trying to reduce competition in the work collab market by bundling Teams with its popular Office 365 Suite. Microsoft forces Office users to install Teams (and blocks them from removing it).
- The issue: Slack's having a hard time getting companies that use Office to pay for Slack too, since Teams is included free of extra charge. Office = every Slack salesperson's nightmare.
- The solution: Slack wants Microsoft to sell Teams as a standalone product, instead of bundling it with the omnipresent Office Suite. TBD whether the EU will formally investigate.
Cutting some slack... Microsoft has bundled a bunch of productivity apps with Office for the past 30 years. So naturally, it decided to throw in Teams right after launching it in 2016. But Microsoft isn't the only "bundling bully" in town:
- Google bundles almost all its work collab tools into GSuite. It started offering its Meet video tool for free this year — Zoom could complain.
- Amazon bundles Prime Video with your Prime subscription — Netflix could complain. It also throws in Prime Music — Spotify could complain.
- Apple pre-downloads its Music app on your iPhone — Spotify did complain.
The disadvantage of being a “One-and-Only” company... "One & Only" companies like Slack and Netflix are successful for doing one thing really well. Buuut — they run the risk of getting overtaken by Big Tech companies with hundreds of products (that can afford to give away tools for free). Sometimes those freebies are the profit puppies of entire other companies. That could potentially crush them.