Tag: teams

Google Chat Rolls Out Cross-Platform Messaging With Microsoft Teams, Slack: How It Works

Google Chat will now allow sending messages to Microsoft Teams and Slack with its new interoperability support. The cross-platform messaging feature was first announced by the tech giant at the Google Cloud Next 2023 event, but so far the feature was available only in beta to a limited number of users. With the new update, all paid subscribers of Google Workspace will be able to send messages to Teams and Slack users. Notably, users and organisations will need to use the Mio app to access the functionality.

The new feature was announced via a Google Workspace update. The company said, “Interoperability will enable organisations that use Google Chat and other messaging platforms within their domain to provide a more seamless experience for their users.” This means users will only be able to use this feature to send messages to people within their own organisation. This could be useful to text coworkers in different teams who use a separate app for communication.

However, there is a caveat. The cross-platform messaging feature is not built into Google Chat. So, users will need to download and install the Mio app to create the interoperability. This will be the tricky part since organisations will need to purchase an additional license in order to use the feature. Despite the extra steps, it can be a useful feature for large organisations that are not exclusively using a single communications platform for all the teams.

Cross-platform messaging feature between Google Chat, Microsoft Teams, and Slack was being tested by the company for the last one year and its availability was limited to some users. Google earlier announced in this year’s Cloud Next event that the feature will be rolled out to all paid customers of Workspace, and starting last week, this feature is being rolled out globally.

Separately, Slack released its artificial intelligence (AI) features to all paid users globally. Now, users with a paid subscription of the platform can purchase an add-on to activate features such as recaps, search, and conversation summaries. The company also intends to add note-taking summary generation feature for its voice and video calling feature Huddle.

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Microsoft to Separate Teams and Office Globally Amid Antitrust Scrutiny

Microsoft will sell its chat and video app Teams separately from its Office product globally, the US tech giant said on Monday, six months after it unbundled the two products in Europe in a bid to avert a possible EU antitrust fine.

The European Commission has been investigating Microsoft’s tying of Office and Teams since a 2020 complaint by Salesforce-owned competing workspace messaging app Slack.

Teams, which was added to Office 365 in 2017 for free, subsequently replaced Skype for Business and became popular during the pandemic due in part to its video conferencing.

Rivals, however, said packaging the products together gives Microsoft an unfair advantage. The company started selling the two products separately in the EU and Switzerland on August 31 last year.

“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.

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

Microsoft said in a blogpost that it was introducing a new lineup of commercial Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites that do not include Teams in regions outside the EEA (European Economic Area) and Switzerland, and also a new standalone Teams offering for Enterprise customers in those regions.

Starting April 1, customers can either continue with their current licensing deal, renew, update or switch to the new offers.

For new commercial customers, prices for Office without Teams range from $7.75 to $54.75 (roughly from Rs. 646 to Rs. 4,566) depending on the product while Teams Standalone will cost $5.25 (roughly Rs. 437). The figures may vary by country and currency. The company did not disclose prices for current packaged products.

Microsoft’s unbundling may not be enough to stave off EU antitrust charges which will likely be sent to the company in the coming months as rivals criticise the level of the fees and the ability of their messaging services to function with Office Web Applications in their own services, sources said.

Microsoft, which has racked up EUR 2.2 billion ($2.4 billion or roughly Rs. 20,016 crore) in EU antitrust fines in the past decade for tying or bundling two or more products together, risks a fine of as much as 10 percent of its global annual turnover if found guilty of antitrust breaches.

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Microsoft to Unbundle Teams From Office Product to Avert EU Antitrust Fine

Microsoft will unbundle its chat and video app Teams from its Office product and make it easier for rival products to work with its software, the US company said on Thursday in a move aimed at staving off a possible EU antitrust fine.

The proposed changes came a month after the European Commission launched an investigation into Microsoft’s tying of Office and Teams following a complaint by Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack in 2020.

Microsoft’s preliminary concessions failed to address concerns. The EU competition enforcer on Thursday said it took note of the company’s announcement and declined further comment.

Teams was added to Office 365 in 2017 for free. It eventually replaced Skype for Business and gained in popularity during the pandemic due in part to its video conferencing.

“Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooperate with it,” Nanna-Louise Linde, Microsoft’s vice president for European government affairs said in a blog post.

She said the changes seek to address two EU concerns, “that customers should be able to choose a business suite without Teams at a price less than those with Teams included, and that we should do more to make interoperability easier between rival communication and collaboration solutions and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites”.

The changes, effective from October 1, will apply in Europe and Switzerland. 

Office without Teams will be sold at a lower price, EUR 2 (nearly Rs. 180) less per month or EUR 24 (nearly Rs. 2,160) per year to Microsoft’s core enterprise customers, which represent most of the company’s commercial business in Europe.

New enterprise customers can buy Teams standalone and separately for EUR 5 (nearly Rs. 450) per month or EUR 60 (nearly Rs. 5,400) per year, while existing enterprise customers who already have a suite with Teams can choose to keep it or move to a without-Teams suite. 

New support resources will be introduced to help customers and independent software vendors who want to remove data from Teams and used it in another product.

Microsoft will also develop a new method for hosting the Office web applications within competing apps and services similar to what it does with Teams. 

The stakes are high for the US tech giant which racked up EUR 2.2 billion (nearly Rs. 19,800 crore) in EU antitrust fines in the previous decade for tying or bundling two or more products together but which has since then sought a more conciliatory approach with regulators.

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Google Unveils AI-Powered Tools to Enterprise Customers at $30 Monthly Fee

Google on Tuesday made its artificial intelligence-powered tools available to enterprise customers at a monthly price of $30 (nearly Rs. 2,500) per user, as the Alphabet-owned firm looks to cash in on the technology’s surge in popularity this year.

The price is the same as rival Microsoft‘s “Copilot” AI-powered office software suite that includes Teams and Outlook.

Google has intensified investments in generative AI this year as it plays catch-up after Microsoft-backed OpenAI‘s launch of ChatGPT last year took the tech world by storm. 

Its Tuesday announcement was made at the Google Next conference in San Francisco, where the company also unveiled a new version of its custom-built AI chips and a tool to watermark and identify images generated by AI. 

Google’s new tools include “Duet AI in Workspace”, which will assist customers across its apps with writing in Docs, drafting emails in Gmail and generating custom visuals in Slides, among others.

“We have released this add-on in response to strong customer demand and will continue to enhance and expand,” Google said, adding that the tools were tested by more than a million users.

The company plans to release more offerings over the coming months for other customer segments, including small and medium-sized businesses and consumers.

On Monday, OpenAI also announced the release of new ChatGPT version for large businesses. ChatGPT Enterprise is claimed to offer more security, privacy and higher-speed access to OpenAI’s technology. The early customers of the version include Block, Carlyle and Estee Lauder Companies.

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Microsoft Likely to Face EU Antitrust Investigation in Coming Months

Microsoft is likely to face an EU antitrust investigation in the coming months after remedy discussions with the EU watchdog to avert such a move appear to have hit a roadblock, people familiar with the matter said.

Microsoft, which has been fined EUR 2.2 billion (nearly Rs. 19,670 crore) in the previous decade for practices in breach of EU competition rules, including tying or bundling two or more products together, found itself in the EU crosshairs after a complaint by Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack in 2020.

Microsoft added Teams to Office 365 in 2017 for free, with the app eventually replacing Skype for Business. 

Slack alleged that its rival had unfairly integrated workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product.

Microsoft kicked off talks with the European Commission last year in a bid to stave off an investigation. It recently offered to cut the price of its Office product without its Teams app.

The European Commission has been seeking a deeper price cut than that offered by the U.S. software giant, the people said.

The EU executive declined to comment. 

A Microsoft spokesperson said: “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.”

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Microsoft 365 Services Back Up After Hours of Outage That Affected Thousands

Microsoft said on Monday that it had restored its online services after an outage affected thousands of users of its 365 software suite, including Teams and Outlook, for more than two hours.

Access to its productivity software such as Word and Excel was down for nearly 18,000 users at its peak before easing to 906 at around 12:57 p.m. ET, according to Downdetector.com, which tracks internet outages.

“We have resolved an issue preventing users from accessing some of our services,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

Microsoft flagged the outage earlier by saying it was investigating an issue with accessing Outlook on the web and later added that Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for business were also impacted.

The tech company said it had rolled back a system update to resolve the outage, without providing any detail.

Several Twitter users complained about the outage and shared the issues faced by them due to the disruption.

Microsoft’s services have been hit by at least three outages since the beginning of the year.

In January, the company was hit with a networking outage that took down its cloud platform Azure along with services such as Teams and Outlook, potentially affecting millions of users globally.

Azure’s status page showed services were impacted in the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa. Only services in China and its platform for governments were not hit.

An outage of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure can impact a variety of services and create a domino effect as almost all of the world’s largest companies use the platform.

Outages of Big Tech platforms are not uncommon as several companies ranging from Google to Meta have seen service disruptions. Azure, the second largest cloud services provider after Amazon, faced outages last year.

However, with increased dependence on online platforms due to more employees working from home in the last three years any outage has a greater impact. 

 

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Microsoft Said to Have Offered to Charge for Its Office Product to Address EU Antitrust Concerns

Microsoft has offered to charge different prices for its Office product with and without its Teams app to stave off a possible EU antitrust investigation and fine, two people familiar with the matter said.

Microsoft has been seeking to address the EU competition enforcer’s concerns since last year after Salesforce-owned workspace messaging app Slack complained to the European Commission, other people familiar with the matter told Reuters in December.

Slack in 2020 alleged that Microsoft has unfairly integrated its workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product. The US tech giant introduced Teams in 2017 targeting the fast-growing and lucrative workplace collaboration market.

The European Commission on Thursday said there were other complainants besides Slack.

“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,” a spokesperson said.

Microsoft said it continued to engage cooperatively with the Commission and was “open to pragmatic solutions that address its concerns and serve customers well”.

Salesforce declined to comment.

The EU antitrust watchdog is seeking feedback from Microsoft rivals on its proposal, the people said.

In the last decade, the European Commission fined Microsoft EUR 2.2 billion (nearly Rs. 19,800 crore) for practices in breach of EU competition rules, including tying or bundling two or more products together.

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