From Office Communicator to Microsoft Teams: An evolution of Microsoft’s communication and collaboration tools

Key facts and information about the history of Microsoft’s productivity solutions and how Microsoft has responded to concerns.
 

In July 2023, the European Commission opened a formal investigation regarding the inclusion of Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for commercial customers. The following timeline provides an overview of the evolution of Microsoft’s communication and collaboration tools as well as the proactive steps the company has taken to unbundle Teams from enterprise productivity software suites globally and further improve interoperability with competitor services.

Messaging and video conferencing solutions like Teams have been part of the Office suite since 2005 and have been included in Office 365 since it was first launched in 2011. They have been a core element of modern productivity solutions in the past two decades. Microsoft has approached concerns about Teams with proactivity, collaboration and responsibility, and will continue to remain focused on constructive solutions to this matter following the European Commission’s Statement of Objections.  

A timeline of events

 
  • March 2, 2009: Microsoft introduced its first Cloud-based productivity tools. Microsoft announced the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), offering cloud-hosted versions of the Office Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, as well as applications for online messaging, meeting and calling with Office Live Meeting and Office Communicator Online.
  • June 28, 2011: Microsoft rebranded BPOS as Office 365, continuing to include collaboration and communication functionality under the Microsoft Lync Online brand. Since launching in 2009 as BPOS and through the rebrand in 2011, the Office 365 suites have always included and evolved the same core productivity, communication and collaboration functionalities and features, namely Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, the Microsoft 365 Apps and communication and collaboration functionality that ultimately became Skype for Business Online and now Teams.
  • October 13, 2011: Microsoft acquired Skype, deepening the company’s long standing focus on real-time video and voice communications. The transaction was originally announced on May 10, 2011. Microsoft rebranded Lync to Skype for Business in early 2015.
  • March 2017: Google launched Hangouts Meet, its video conferencing solution, and Hangouts Chat, its messaging application, integrating both into Google’s commercial productivity suites. Today, the two solutions continue to be made available and integrated at no charge to commercial users as Google Meet and Google Chat Google Workspace suites.
  • March 14, 2017: Microsoft announced the general availability of Microsoft Teams for Office 365 as the planned successor to Skype for Business within Office 365. After a transition period, the company fully phased out and replaced its predecessor Skype for Business with Teams in the productivity suite.
  • March 2020: Governments and customers turned to Microsoft Teams – as well as Zoom – to weather Covid-19 lockdowns. Microsoft employees worked around the clock at the behest of governments and customers to deploy and roll out Teams across organizations as quickly and cheaply as possible to keep businesses running, critical services available, and students learning.
  • July 2020: The Covid-19 Pandemic effect for communication and collaboration services. Zoom and Teams saw significant growth during the Covid-19 pandemic while Slack lagged behind without strong video capabilities. Zoom revenues skyrocketed 355% to $663.5 million for the three months ending July 31, 2020. Profits reached $186 million, while customer growth rose 458%, compared with the same period in 2019. Conversely, video communications were not a “strategic focus” for Slack, with then CEO Stewart Butterfield stating: “I don’t think anyone’s going to pay us any more extra money to include video calling.”
  • July 22, 2020: Slack filed a competition complaint with the European Commission. Slack filed a complaint against Microsoft before the European Commission regarding Microsoft including Teams in the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites as a replacement for the existing Skype for Business functionality.
  • December 1, 2020: Salesforce announced that it had entered an agreement to acquire Slack for $27 billion. Salesforce noted that “Slack will be deeply integrated into every Salesforce Cloud.” As the new interface for Salesforce Customer 360, Salesforce boasted that the combination would “create the operating system for the new way to work.” Salesforce completed the acquisition on July 21, 2021.
  • July 20, 2023: Alfaview filed a competition complaint with the European Commission. The German provider of video communication services, Alfaview, filed a formal complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft for the inclusion of Teams in Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites targeted at educational institutions.
  • July 27, 2023: The European Commission launched a formal competition investigation in the Teams case. The European Commission announced that it had opened a formal investigation regarding Microsoft’s inclusion of Microsoft Teams with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers. At the time, Microsoft said, “we will continue to cooperate with the Commission and remain committed to finding solutions that will address its concerns.
  • August 31, 2023: Microsoft announced changes to Microsoft 365 and Office 365 in response to concerns raised with the European Commission. Microsoft announced it would: 1) provide new Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland that did not include Teams, 2) enhance existing resources on interoperability with Microsoft 365 and Office 365, and 3) create new mechanisms to enable third-party solutions to host Office web applications.
  • September 29, 2023: Microsoft introduced interoperability improvements for competing collaboration and communication services. Following Microsoft’s announcement to take action to address the European Commission’s concerns, Microsoft published new documentation for ISVs that develop applications that integrate with Microsoft 365.
  • October 1, 2023: Microsoft released Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites without Teams in the EEA and Switzerland.  As announced on August 31, 2023, Microsoft updated the way Microsoft 365, Office 365 and Teams were licensed to business and enterprise customers in the EEA and Switzerland to address concerns raised by the European Commission.
  • October 2023: Zoom debuted Zoom Docs a word processing solution expected to be part of its growing integrating Zoom Workspace productivity suite. Built around its popular Zoom video conferencing application, its Zoom Workspace suites for commercial users integrate email, calendaring, messaging and presentation solutions and provide for integration with Microsoft and other productivity solutions. General availability of Zoom Docs is expected sometime in 2024.
  • February 5, 2024: Microsoft further improved the interoperability of its productivity suite with competitor solutions. Microsoft announced the Microsoft 365 Document Collaboration Partner Program to enable third-party collaboration and communications solutions to host the Office web apps, with Zoom as the first participant. This program enabled customers on platforms like Zoom to use Microsoft’s web apps to view, collaborate and coauthor documents within a third-party application experience like Zoom.
  • April 1, 2024: Microsoft extended availability of Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites without Teams worldwide. Microsoft updated the way Microsoft 365, Office 365 and Teams were licensed elsewhere in the world to follow the same approach as was being taken in the EEA and Switzerland.
  • June 25, 2024: The European Commission issued a Statement of Objections in its case involving Microsoft Teams. The Commission informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has breached EU antitrust rules by including Teams in its business productivity suites Office 365 and Microsoft 365. At the time, Microsoft said: “Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the Commission’s remaining concerns.”

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