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Everybody needs Office. There really is no practical way around it for businesses Now companies get a "free" (initially) software in addition to what they actu

Everybody needs Office. There really is no practical way around it for businesses Now companies get a "free" (initially) software in addition to what they actually want. Microsoft can only afford that because they already get Money from their Monopoly product and can finance it that way without the customers having the ability to object (because Office has a market domineering position). Business chat competitors can not compete against that because no matter how good their product, they cannot force companies to buy it as Microsoft can. Result: Teams wins because Office won. That is what they EU is having issues with.

WheatMillington 2y ago
Are we really going to consider the provision of free software to be bad for consumers?
- crowcroft 2y ago
  I think the best argument I've heard against this is that it kills innovation. If products win in one category by default because a company already won in a different category then we lack the healthy an competitive environment for innovation to thrive in.
newzisforsukas 2y ago
> There really is no practical way around it for businesses No one I work with uses Office. I work for a business.
- arlcode 2y ago
  Fair. Let's say most office based businesses with at least a handful of employees do absolutely need Office or Windows.
neerajsi 2y ago
I'd argue that Office has competition in the form of GSuite, which has collaborative features So how much market share does Office have to lose to GSuite before Microsoft can implement features that their competitor has? Put another way, does a dominant market player have to stagnate in order to avoid breaking antitrust law, rather than anticipating the needs of their customers to make their product more useful?
- arlcode 2y ago
  I cannot speak about when office (and Windows) would be considerd "small" enough to not fall under these law. For now not even Microsoft makes this argument. As far as I know they can innovate on the actual product as much as they want. Teams itself may be the best software product ever. The issue lies in Microsoft using it's ownership of Office and Windows to "force"/"sell" it to customers. The details of what that means exactly will be decided by a court.

WheatMillington 2y ago

Are we really going to consider the provision of free software to be bad for consumers?

crowcroft 2y ago
I think the best argument I've heard against this is that it kills innovation. If products win in one category by default because a company already won in a different category then we lack the healthy an competitive environment for innovation to thrive in.

newzisforsukas 2y ago

> There really is no practical way around it for businesses No one I work with uses Office. I work for a business.

arlcode 2y ago
Fair. Let's say most office based businesses with at least a handful of employees do absolutely need Office or Windows.

neerajsi 2y ago

I'd argue that Office has competition in the form of GSuite, which has collaborative features So how much market share does Office have to lose to GSuite before Microsoft can implement features that their competitor has? Put another way, does a dominant market player have to stagnate in order to avoid breaking antitrust law, rather than anticipating the needs of their customers to make their product more useful?

arlcode 2y ago
I cannot speak about when office (and Windows) would be considerd "small" enough to not fall under these law. For now not even Microsoft makes this argument. As far as I know they can innovate on the actual product as much as they want. Teams itself may be the best software product ever. The issue lies in Microsoft using it's ownership of Office and Windows to "force"/"sell" it to customers. The details of what that means exactly will be decided by a court.