Slack chief executive Stewart Butterfield. Photo credit: Slack

Business communication platform Slack has filed a competition complaint with the European Commission (EU) against Microsoft, one of the company’s major competitors, alleging Microsoft has engaged in “illegal and anti-competitive practice of abusing its market dominance to extinguish competition”. Slack’s complaint mainly centers around Microsoft tying its competing “Microsoft Teams” product to its Office productivity suite and “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers” in the process.

“We’re confident that we win on the merits of our product, but we can’t ignore illegal behavior that deprives customers of access to the tools and solutions they want,” Jonathan Prince, Slack’s Vice President of Communications and Policy, said in a press statement. “Slack threatens Microsoft’s hold on business email, the cornerstone of Office, which means Slack threatens Microsoft’s lock on enterprise software.”

Slack is apparently calling on the EU to review Microsoft’s bundling of its business communication Teams software into the Office suite. As a complaint has been lodged, the European Commission will now review and decide if it merits a formal investigation.