Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has long been a popular target for antitrust suits, thanks to its enormous scale and power in the field. After struggling so long in the Activision (NASDAQ:ATVI) purchase, another antitrust suit is said to be looming for Microsoft, this time about the combined product of Teams and Office. The news was enough to send Microsoft down a bit in Thursday afternoon trading.
The European Commission recently received a complaint from Alfaview, a German firm working along the same lines as Microsoft. When Microsoft bundled Teams and Office together, the complaint notes, it gave Microsoft a significant competitive advantage. However, the problem here is that the advantage in question doesn’t come from performance in the software, and it’s not an advantage that can be readily matched by the competition. That might not seem like a problem, but in Europe, it is.
Meanwhile, the Activision deal is also still hung up in Europe. However, that’s a lot farther along than it was; the Competition and Markets Authority in Great Britain is awaiting a modified deal between the two firms that will better address the competition concerns held over the previous deal. The biggest issue outstanding remains matters of competitive access to the cloud gaming market, reports note, and so any new deal from Microsoft will have to conclusively address said concerns.
Yet even with all this legal hassle, Microsoft is still a favored child among analysts. Analyst consensus calls Microsoft stock a Strong Buy, thanks to 31 Buy ratings, three Hold and one Sell. Meanwhile, Microsoft stock offers investors a 4.87% upside potential thanks to its average price target of $366.06.
