Microsoft Finally Allows Users To Remove Chat App After EU Antitrust Investigation!

Whether you’re an employee, manager or senior leader in your company, no matter the industry, you must have come across Microsoft Teams, right? #Teamswork

Since its launch in 2017, Microsoft’s communications platform has gone through changes, updates, new features and other additions. These are normal for any product, however, in Microsoft’s case, it witnessed Teams becoming one of the most popular platforms in the past few years.

This has been observed with an increasing number of organizations making it part of their daily operations. Getting into some impressive statistics, as of 2023, Microsoft Teams enjoyed over 280 million daily active users, with more than 100 million app downloads on Android devices. While there are over 6.22 billion chats being recorded yearly, there are over 300 conversations taking place on the platform each minute!

Furthermore, since the pandemic, the number of video calls on the Teams platform increased by a staggering 1000%!

While the platform serves as the go-to tool for corporate communications, its Chat app was launched amid much hype as a new way to chat with friends and family. The app was integrated, installed and pinned on the Windows 11 taskbar, as per announcements made during a Windows 11 event in October 2021. The app aimed to enable connecting with friends and family, schedule calls and attend group video and audio calls, all outside of one’s workspace.

Microsoft Teams is one of the most widely used and preferred communications and collaboration platforms. So, naturally, Chat would’ve been well adopted, right?
 
Nope! Microsoft ran into some major problems with the European Union regulators regarding antitrust investigations which resulted in a very low adoption. This led to Microsoft allowing users to remove the Chat app entirely from Windows 11. Previously, users could unpin the app from the taskbar but couldn’t uninstall it. (Unpinning it from the taskbar meant the app still resided within the taskbar and was simply hidden.)

Regarding the same, a spokesperson for the European Commission commented on there being more complainants besides EU, such as its competitor Slack, saying, “We have received several complaints regarding Microsoft, including by Slack, regarding Microsoft's conduct in relation to its Teams product. As you know the assessment is ongoing so we cannot comment further."

Slack’s owner, Salesforce, declined to comment on the matter.

Microsoft also said, “We are mindful of our responsibilities in the EU as a major technology company. We continue to engage cooperatively with the commission in its investigation and are open to pragmatic solutions that address its concerns and serve customers well."

Other than this, Microsoft has been under the spotlight for bundling services together, which competitors feel is an unfair practice. Reportedly, in 2008, the European Union fined Microsoft $733 million for not allowing users a choice of web browsers. #NotTheFirstTime
 
Do you think European Union regulators are correct in their concerns about Microsoft not allowing users to uninstall Chat? Was Microsoft justified in fully integrating its products on Windows 11? Let us know in the comments below!