UK competition regulator moves to designate Microsoft over its business software

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority proposed on 16 October 2026 to designate Microsoft with strategic market status in what it calls Microsoft’s business software ecosystem. The designation comes from the UK’s digital markets regime and would let the regulator impose conduct requirements on the company. The CMA opened the investigation on 14 May. Comments on the proposed decision are due by 13 November, and the regulator says it will take a final decision by 13 February 2027.

The scope is broad. The CMA names Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Teams and, increasingly, Copilot, together with Microsoft’s security, server and operating-system products, and says they are used by more than a million UK businesses and public-sector bodies with around 20 million monthly users. It found Microsoft holds a strong position in all five areas it examined: PC operating systems, productivity suites, security software, server operating systems and relational databases. It stresses that a designation would not imply wrongdoing.

The finding that matters for anyone weighing an alternative is the reason the CMA gives for that strength. It says Microsoft’s position “comes from the barriers customers face when switching”. Its proposal document adds that because the products are sold as a discounted bundle, adopting a rival can mean paying twice for something the customer already licenses. The roadmap published alongside the proposal lists three areas for further work: whether rival AI tools get a level playing field against Copilot, whether the bundling of Microsoft’s security products limits choice, and whether customers can choose which cloud they deploy their licences on.

The same switching cost is visible in the Netherlands. In a letter to parliament in early October, State Secretary for Finance Eelco Eerenberg confirmed that the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration has abandoned its Microsoft 365 cloud migration. Mail and calendar move on-premises in 2027, and European open-source tools for storage and collaboration follow in 2027 and 2028. The letter also says existing licences will be reused where possible, so the first step leaves Microsoft’s cloud rather than Microsoft, and some records-management functions in the cloud package have no on-premises replacement yet.

The European options for the products the CMA names are on this site. For documents and spreadsheets, LibreOffice Writer, LibreOffice Calc, Collabora Online and OX Text. For Teams, Element, Wire and Nextcloud Talk. For Outlook-style mail, Proton Mail, Tuta Mail and mailbox.org Mail. A designation would change the terms on which those products compete with Microsoft. It does not change the products.