Microsoft has announced that it will sell Teams, its video and chat app, separately from the rest of its Office bundle globally, following it doing the same in Europe just six months ago, in a bid to appease antitrust laws in the EU.

Competitors such as Slack have been complaining about Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with its other applications since 2020, sparking an EU Commission investigation into whether the practice breaches anti-trust laws.

Teams was originally bundled with Office 365 in 2017, replacing Skype for Businesses and rocketing to popularity during the pandemic with its chat interface and videoing capabilities.

Soon, however, Salesforce, which owns Slack, and other rivals said that the bundle gave Microsoft an unfair advantage in the video and chat app market.

Last year, Microsoft elected to sell Teams separately from the rest of Office 365 in a bid to assuage anti-trust fears.

“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,” a Microsoft spokesperson said, as reported by Reuters.

“Doing so also addresses feedback from the European Commission by providing multinational companies more flexibility when they want to standardise their purchasing across geographies.”

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Like its current EU offering, Office 365 will be sold in bundles that do not include Teams, which will be sold separately for an additional fee.

From April 1, customers outside of the EEA will be able to continue with their current licensing deal, renew it, or update to a new offer.

The global move may not be enough to keep antitrust watchdogs off Microsoft’s back, however, as rival companies scrutinise their price levels and the lack of interoperability offered to other chat and video services.