The choice was made when Redmond was engaged in conflict with antitrust authorities.
What would be the cost of Microsoft's bundle of Office and Teams?
This would be the first antitrust investigation into Microsoft since the EU charged the tech giant with violating antitrust laws in 2008 by pressuring Windows customers to download Internet Explorer as part of a package, leading to a $561 million fine in 2013.
For personal, commercial, enterprise, and educational applications of Microsoft Office 365 programmes, there are different subscription costs.
Officials from Redmond have set the price for personal and family plans at $99.99/year for up to six users and 6 TB of cloud storage. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, Editor, Defender, Teams, OneNote, and more features are available in the app.
Microsoft has also made its AI-powered Copilot assistant available across all Office 365 apps. The feature has been internally tested on a small number of chosen insiders, albeit the tech giant has not yet made any official statements about its pricing strategy or release schedule.
Microsoft has decided to discontinue including its well-liked video conferencing tool, Teams, in the Office 365 fee. The action was taken in response to rival Slack's antitrust complaint and to avert an official EU investigation.
According to Financial Times, Slack claimed in 2020 that Microsoft's bundling policy is unfair and anti-competitive because it forces businesses who want to purchase Office 365 to also choose Teams at the same time.
Although Microsoft has not yet commented on how it will proceed, the decision is probably definitive, and we'll keep you informed of how to choose not to receive Teams when you purchase an Office 365 membership. As Teams won't be part of your subscription, you may also have to pay a little bit more.
What do you think of Microsoft's decision to stop including Teams in subscription options for Office 365? Comment below and let us know!