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Before yesterdayTechnology

Microsoft risks huge fine over โ€œpossibly abusiveโ€ bundling of Teams and Office

25 June 2024 at 12:59
A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at a conference on January 30, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain.

Enlarge / A screen shows a virtual meeting with Microsoft Teams at a conference on January 30, 2024 in Barcelona, Spain. (credit: Cesc Maymo / Contributor | Getty Images News)

Microsoft may be hit with a massive fine in the European Union for "possibly abusively" bundling Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites for businesses.

On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings of an investigation into whether Microsoft's "suite-centric business model combining multiple types of software in a single offering" unfairly shut out rivals in the "software as a service" (SaaS) market.

"Since at least April 2019," the EC found, Microsoft's practice of "tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications" potentially restricted competition in the "market for communication and collaboration products."

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Single point of software failure could hamstring 15K car dealerships for days

20 June 2024 at 12:03
Ford Mustang Mach E electric vehicles are offered for sale at a dealership on June 5, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois.

Enlarge / Ford Mustang Mach E electric vehicles are offered for sale at a dealership on June 5, 2024, in Chicago, Illinois. (credit: Scott Olson / Getty Images)

CDK Global touts itself as an all-in-one software-as-a-service solution that is "trusted by nearly 15,000 dealer locations." One connection, over an always-on VPN to CDK's data centers, gives a dealership customer relationship management (CRM) software, financing, inventory, and more back-office tools.

That all-in-one nature explains why people trying to buy cars, and especially those trying to sell them, have had a rough couple of days. CDK's services have been down, due to what the firm describes as a "cyber incident." CDK shut down most of its systems Wednesday, June 19, then told dealerships that afternoon that it restored some services. CDK told dealers today, June 20, that it had "experienced an additional cyber incident late in the evening on June 19," and shut down systems again.

"At this time, we do not have an estimated time frame for resolution and therefore our dealers' systems will not be available at a minimum on Thursday, June 20th," CDK told customers.

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