Re:Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams...
by TeMPOraL on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @08:59AM
(#36785568)
Per the article, it seems that it's Slack that's been making the noise and pushing for this, and EU is just playing ball (perhaps because of the mercantilism you mention).
Re:Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams...
by idkyall on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @09:37AM
(#36786096)
But Slack is owned by Salesforce, a US company
Re:Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams...
by TeMPOraL on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @10:04PM
(#36796082)
But both Slack and Microsoft operate in the EU market as well. Slack is trying to buy itself some breathing room by convincing the EU to go after Microsoft.
Re:Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams...
by spacebanana7 on Wednesday July 19, 2023 @10:41AM
(#36787195)
> a good way of "group negotiation" to get a bulk discount on Microsoft (US) products.
More broadly - the EU has an interest in the terms of trade in software being more consumer friendly because it's a net importer of software products.
The EU relatively weaker at developing international software, so slapping "antitrust fines" on Microsoft (which probably have nonzero merit) is a good way of "group negotiation" to get a bulk discount on Microsoft (US) products.
The analogy is how the USA is relatively less good at making quality cheese and wine compared to the EU, so the USA allows any sparking wine to be labeled "Champagne" and any Emmental-style cheese to be labeled "Swiss".
Trump got many things wrong, but got the trade negotiation right when he slapped back luxury wine tariffs on France in return for France fining US software companies -- bulk discounts in both cases.