People familiar with the matter said Microsoft is likely to face an EU antitrust investigation as regulators intensify their scrutiny into its practices in a case triggered by Salesforce.com's workspace messaging app Slack.
Slack complained to the European Commission last year, saying Microsoft has unfairly integrated its workplace chat and video app Teams into its Office product. Microsoft introduced Teams in 2017 to try and take a slice of the fast-growing workplace collaboration market.
Slack urged the EU competition enforcer to order the U.S. software giant to separate Teams from the Office Suit and sell it separately at fair commercial prices.
The Commission sent out another batch of questionnaires in a follow-up to those sent out in October last year, a sign that the EU competition enforcer is preparing the ground for a formal investigation, the people said.
The Commission is looking at Microsoft's interoperability and bundling, but more detailed this time. One of the people said they are looking for information that allows them to define remedies.
They are preparing the ground for an investigation, a second person said.
The Commission and Microsoft, which has been fined 2.2 billion euros $2.3 billion for cases involving so-called tying and other practices in the last decade, didn't want to comment.