Slack Technologies Inc. urged European Union antitrust regulators to probe Microsoft Corp. for unfairly foisting its Teams collaborative software on millions of users.
“Microsoft has illegally tied its Teams product into its market-dominant Office productivity suite, force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers,” Slack said in an emailed statement on Wednesday.
The complaint escalates a fierce rivalry among videoconferencing and collaboration tools, amid exploding demand as the coronavirus pandemic pushed businesses to close offices and move to remote work. Teams vies with Slack and Zoom Video Communications for corporate customers.
Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to restore fair competition. It said it wants Teams to be sold separately from Office to compete directly with rival standalone products. It also complains that Microsoft has refused to provide interoperability information, hampering users who want to connect quickly from Slack to Microsoft calls or documents.
Microsoft looks forward “to providing additional information to the European Commission and answering any questions they may have”, it said in an emailed statement.
“We created Teams to combine the ability to collaborate with the ability to connect via video, because that’s what people want. With Covid-19, the market has embraced Teams in record numbers while Slack suffered from its absence of video-conferencing,” it said.
The complaint gives the EU another potential tech-giant target after fining Google billions of euros and starting new probes into Amazon and Apple.
Microsoft spent decades battling antitrust regulators in the US and Europe over complaints that it unfairly tied products and blocked rivals’ access to the desktop Windows software used on most computers at the time. It hasn’t been under formal EU scrutiny since a 2013 fine for not complying with a pledge to offer a choice of web browsers.
The European Commission confirmed it received the complaint and said it will “assess it under our standard procedure”.
Slack general counsel David Schellhase told reporters that the company is also “having conversations with relevant US authorities”, adding it is not ruling out actions in other jurisdictions.
“Microsoft is reverting to past behaviour”, said Mr Schellhase in the statement. The company “created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behaviour during the browser wars”.
San Francisco-based Slack licenses its workplace collaboration software to businesses, allowing users to instantly message or share files with a wide group of colleagues in an effort to cut down on email.
Investors had expected Slack to prosper from the boom in remote work but the stock fell as much as 19 per cent after the company in June withdrew its annual billings forecast, citing business uncertainty. That could signal the company isn’t confident it will benefit as much from the work-from-home era as investors expect.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has been putting pressure on Slack in recent years with its Teams product, which it bundles with its 365 productivity suite.
Locked in a growing rivalry, the two companies have been wrestling to add more features and gain more customers. In March, Slack simplified the design of its program in an effort to better compete with the Teams application, a day before Microsoft itself unveiled new features.
Microsoft said in March that Teams has 20 clients with more than 100,000 users apiece, and over 650 customers each with more than 10,000 users. Slack said in June it now has more than 122,000 paying customers, an increase of 28 per cent compared with a year earlier.
Despite the competition, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield had said earlier this year it would work to integrate the Teams application on its platform because many large customers use Microsoft products.
The specs: Lamborghini Aventador SVJ
Price, base: Dh1,731,672
Engine: 6.5-litre V12
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 770hp @ 8,500rpm
Torque: 720Nm @ 6,750rpm
Fuel economy: 19.6L / 100km
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
The specs
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Power: 640hp
Torque: 760nm
On sale: 2026
Price: Not announced yet
Volunteers offer workers a lifeline
Community volunteers have swung into action delivering food packages and toiletries to the men.
When provisions are distributed, the men line up in long queues for packets of rice, flour, sugar, salt, pulses, milk, biscuits, shaving kits, soap and telecom cards.
Volunteers from St Mary’s Catholic Church said some workers came to the church to pray for their families and ask for assistance.
Boxes packed with essential food items were distributed to workers in the Dubai Investments Park and Ras Al Khaimah camps last week. Workers at the Sonapur camp asked for Dh1,600 towards their gas bill.
“Especially in this year of tolerance we consider ourselves privileged to be able to lend a helping hand to our needy brothers in the Actco camp," Father Lennie Connully, parish priest of St Mary’s.
Workers spoke of their helplessness, seeing children’s marriages cancelled because of lack of money going home. Others told of their misery of being unable to return home when a parent died.
“More than daily food, they are worried about not sending money home for their family,” said Kusum Dutta, a volunteer who works with the Indian consulate.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Sweet%20Tooth
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TEACHERS' PAY - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:
- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools
- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say
- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance
- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs
- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills
- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month
- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues
Gothia Cup 2025
4,872 matches
1,942 teams
116 pitches
76 nations
26 UAE teams
15 Lebanese teams
2 Kuwaiti teams
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Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Virtual banks explained
What is a virtual bank?
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority defines it as a bank that delivers services through the internet or other electronic channels instead of physical branches. That means not only facilitating payments but accepting deposits and making loans, just like traditional ones. Other terms used interchangeably include digital or digital-only banks or neobanks. By contrast, so-called digital wallets or e-wallets such as Apple Pay, PayPal or Google Pay usually serve as intermediaries between a consumer’s traditional account or credit card and a merchant, usually via a smartphone or computer.
What’s the draw in Asia?
Hundreds of millions of people under-served by traditional institutions, for one thing. In China, India and elsewhere, digital wallets such as Alipay, WeChat Pay and Paytm have already become ubiquitous, offering millions of people an easy way to store and spend their money via mobile phone. Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are also among the world’s biggest under-banked countries; together they have almost half a billion people.
Is Hong Kong short of banks?
No, but the city is among the most cash-reliant major economies, leaving room for newcomers to disrupt the entrenched industry. Ant Financial, an Alibaba Group Holding affiliate that runs Alipay and MYBank, and Tencent Holdings, the company behind WeBank and WeChat Pay, are among the owners of the eight ventures licensed to create virtual banks in Hong Kong, with operations expected to start as early as the end of the year.
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
SPECS
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The specs: 2018 Peugeot 5008
Price, base / as tested: Dh99,900 / Dh134,900
Engine: 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Power: 165hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque: 240Nm @ 1,400rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 5.8L / 100km
more from Janine di Giovanni
The Little Things
Directed by: John Lee Hancock
Starring: Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto
Four stars
RESULTS
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
