The EU Hates Teams As Much As You Do (Clip)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- There's No EU in Teams: Microsoft faces an EU antitrust case over anti-competitive behaviour for bundling Teams with Office. Amir Shevat joins Chris Saad and Yaniv Bernstein to discuss.
Clip from Reacts episode, 'Is DEI Really 'Anti-Merit'? Plus: Microsoft Teams' Antitrust, Ilya's 'Safe' AI & More': • Is DEI Really 'Anti-Me...
Listen to Chris and Yaniv's full takes on @startup-podcast
#podcast #entrepreneur #startup #microsoft #teams #antitrust #eu - บันเทิง
Anti-competitive behaviour can be where you take your profits from one industry and use it to undercut competition in another industry.
Of course there are grey areas but continuously expanding their office product line until it includes things like chat, then giving away the chat feature for free or at steep discounts because of the bundling is anti-competitive regardless if the purchaser wants it or not.
The reason this is bad behaviour is is because we know large corporations do this to snuff out competition so that they can then jack up prices. When the anti-competitive company gains market dominance they will wipe out any growing competition through buyouts or further anti-competitive tactics leading to less consumer choice.
It's sad that the perception of anti-competitiveness is in such disarray where even in the 90s world governments would have shut down Microsoft long before their sales people got to the point of offering $10 million discounts on SQL licenses for forced teams adoption.
Worth adding, this doesn't have anything to do with product offerings or being well integrated, it's purely about large monopolies deploying capital to shut down competition. We used to break up companies which became too diversified into different business interests, we need to get back to those days. I think part of the problem is we see companies as people and breaking them up feels wrong. They're not people though, they're a collection of financial interests, and that makes them very fungible. A trait we don't exploit the way we should.
Don't worry, your start up is safe, until it's turning over a significant percentage of the revenue of the market segment it's in and the founders are (probably) billionaires.
edit: The only thing I really took visceral offense at was implying Teams is an 8/10 product.
edit 2: (yes I'm watching this and providing commentary) - just chuckled a bit about how great a platform company Microsoft is for letting you (amongst other things) choose your browser in Windows - the United States sued Microsoft for anti-trust and part of the settlement was forcing them to allow users install whatever browser they wanted on Windows.
edit 3: The reason Microsoft got hit by anti-trust and not Apple is because anti-competitiveness isn't about the products you build, it's the market dominance you exploit to gain unfair advantages. PMs should PM (I have thoughts about PMs) and Microsoft should Microsoft, just like government should govern.
Imagine you’re a product manager or head of MS Office. Wouldn’t you naturally believe that a native group chat product would make sense for your suite?
@@ChrisSaad Apologies I edited the comment a few times and I think your response was caught in between the edits, but as I wrote anti-competitiveness is not about the product.
@@ChrisSaad The problem is how they've marketed it, they can build competitive products but they have to compete on their own merit. Not be included in predatory enterprise agreements that leverage their advantage in other distinct market segments, essentially at gun point (discount is only available IF you adopt Teams).
We need to stop looking at the tech industry as single industry, this is outdated 90s thinking. Teams is competing in video conferencing and instant messaging, not office software, that is too broad a category. It would be like saying a laundromat is in clothing industry.
@ahmedhakeem1044 To your point about anti-competitiveness and it's reputation, that is the fault of governments losing the respect of the people. Too much corruption, regulations that are put in place to create barriers of entry for smaller competition. It would go a long way if the EU and other governments had a citizen led mechanism for anti-trust that's directly voted on by the people.