Tech
SA's Tech Scene is Powered Up – San Antonio Magazine
Published
3 years agoon
When people think of San Antonio’s tech sector, Rackspace—the web hosting company launched in the late 1990s—is often the first thing to come to mind, and for good rea-son. Current and former Rackspace employees (better known as “Rackers”) have been behind much of the local industry and the city’s forward-thinking growth. Former chairman and co-founder Graham Weston, for example, helped found the 80/20 Foundation and coworking space/startup incubator Geekdom while also contributing to investment and development that is transforming downtown into a place tech companies want to operate.
Rackspace, though, is just the start of the city’s growing technology scene. San Antonio and its military bases boast the nation’s second largest concentration of cybersecurity experts, according to Port San Antonio. Much of that is driven by the mil-itary’s longtime presence and emerging partnerships with the FBI, Secret Service and National Security Agency. But it also is being fueled by initiatives and incubators including CyberSecurity San Antonio and Build Sec Foundry, both of which are helping to grow an ecosystem of civilian and corporate cybersecurity and information technology.
Add to that the dozens of health care–related tech ventures, apps and education initiatives, and San Antonio’s tech scene has become one of the city’s major economic and cultural drivers.
Tech Bloc CEO David Heard, who leads the advocacy group that works to develop a pipeline of local talent, says he’s hopeful that things like CAST Tech High School and Tech Talent Central are signs that the industry will continue to grow. “Building a vibrant local tech and innovation economy is absolutely critical to San Antonio’s future prosperity. The driver of all of this is access to talent,” Heard says. “So, our hope at Tech Bloc is to create an energetic movement that, along with our partners, helps San Antonio join the new economy and become a lead city for technology education, innovation and employment.”—EO
Denim Group has been helping customers to develop attack-resilient software since 2001. Their ThreadFix vulnerability management platform assesses the risk level of a client’s applications and their supporting infrastructure. In 2018, Denim Group’s owners sold a minority stake to India-based Wipro—a move that could help the local company extend its reach. denimgroup.com
Digital Defense Inc. provides security risk assessment Security-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions to large and small businesses around the world. With its trademark Frontline suite of products, the Northeast San Antonio company that’s celebrating 20 years this year offers vulnerability scanning and penetration testing plus security awareness training for their clients’ employees. It also recently partnered with UTSA to allow computer science students to use its Frontline Cloud platform in the classroom. digitaldefense.com
InfoCyte's team likes to say it plays offense in a world that is often focused on defense. That means it equips security professionals to look for, find and respond to threats. Its automated platform, HUNT, was developed by Infocyte’s founders, who once led the Air Force Computer Emergency Response Team. The headquarters moved to Austin in 2018, but its Security Operations Center remains in SA. infocyte.com
Innové LLC helps U.S. government and infrastructure clients tackle complicated issues like risk management. In providing solutions through cyber security, virtual reality and data analytics, the company allows its clients to reduce costs while turning their focus to whatever mission they have ahead. Innové operates at several military installations, including a San Antonio software development and training facility. innove.com
Jungle Disk launched in 2006 and moved to San Antonio in 2010, where it operates from the Rand Building. It offers a cybersecurity suite that features automatic data backup, password management and security awareness training for small to midsize businesses. The reason? Its leaders say that nearly half of “major data loss” victims go out of business. Jungle Disk serves more than 25,000 customers worldwide and has data centers in the U.S. and Europe. jungledisk.com
SiloTech Group’s clients range from small businesses to the U.S. Department of Defense (specifically the 24th Air Force in San Antonio). It provides countermeasure development, threat and vulnerability analysis, network operations monitoring and response, among other services. Its academy trains the public and clients on cyber defense. silotechgroup.com
“Our public-private partnership, CyberSecurity San Antonio, exists because our community uniquely recognizes the need to convene, connect and brand the second largest concentration of cybersecurity professionals in the United States,” says Amanda Lee Keammerer, vice president of cybersecurity for the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “Our military roots keep us grounded and united with a ‘team San Antonio’ and ‘team USA’ mindset, which pushes us to find innovative ways to protect our businesses, our communities and our nation, while developing the next generation of cybersecurity leaders.”
Dauber’s one-stop, easy-to-use mobile app is trucking reimagined. By simplifying fleet performance reporting, electronic ticketing, route optimization and even quicker pay for drivers, this app helps increase efficiency for trucking companies which leads to more loads per day. dauberapp.com
FunnelAI makes it possible to post a Facebook status about a new vehicle and receive answers to your specific question from a local dealership. The app filters through over 200 million public social media posts to find prospective customers for businesses. Using their software, businesses are then connected with potential clients and can respond to their social media posts directly. funnelai.com
Grok Interactive makes apps for businesses, organizations, events and initiatives. The company, which opened in 2013, offers scalable web services, too. Notably, Grok has built products for local companies such as MassVenture, Soloshot and Choose San Antonio, the city’s official promotional campaign that twice participated at South by Southwest. grok-interactive.com
HelpSocial was founded by former Rackers Matt Wilbanks and Robert Collazo. The company works to do what the name implies: help. Its open application programming interface (API) that brings together comments, tweets and other online actitivies together so that companies can respond, whether through bots or customer service personnel, more quickly and efficiently. Earlier this year it signed a deal to work with Virgin Mobile Mexico. helpsocial.com
Koedal is also part of the Geekdom portfolio and develops apps for a variety of individuals and businesses. Company founder Collin Beck previously worked at USAA, where he helped to develop the iconic corporation’s go-to app so he knows his stuff. He’s helping to spread that knowledge as leader for the local iOS developer meetup and an iOS bootcamp that he conducts in collaboration with Codeup. koedal.com
Parlevel Systems, based in Southtown (after getting its start at Geekdom), aims to “build better workplaces,” says Christopher Blomquist, director of marketing. It does that through a cohesive platform of hardware and software programs that support vending machines, kiosks, office coffee operations and more. By providing real-time data, its programs can better track inventory, reduce theft and manage the snacks and caffeine being provided in offices in over 22 countries. Seven-day-a-week customer service and tech support is provided so a snack that gets stuck in the vending machine doesn’t put it out of service all day. parlevelsystems.com
Scaleworks is a venture capital firm focused on the tech industry and founded by former Rackspace exec Lew Moorman plus Ed Byrne, who made his name launching and managing tech businesses. The firm looks to acquire SaaS firms that have large, sustainable growth potential and through its Venture Finance program also provide businesses with the loans needed to fund specific initiatives. scaleworks.com
TrueAbility was founded by former Rackers who saw the need for a new method of assessing recruits when phone interviews weren’t cutting it for certain tech jobs. Their company tackles that issue through digital skills-based assessments that help companies find new hires who can handle the job for which they’re applying. TrueAbility also offers performance-based testing for certifications. trueability.com
WellAware works with oil and gas companies to eliminate the need to sift through multiple spreadsheets and programs to analyze their growth, pipeline capacity and chemical services. It provides data collection, management and analysis so energy companies can focus on what matters: their product. wellaware.us
Conceptual Mindworks, Inc. provides health-related scientific and technical services to the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Health and Human Services and the private healthcare community. Clients rely on the company that was founded in San Antonio in 1990 for providing outpatient physicians with electronic medical records, patient portals, clinical data mining, testing and production, pharmaceutical development and more. conceptualmindworks.com
MR3 Health wants to help diabetes patients with a common complication of the disease: foot ulcers, which when not properly monitored and cared for can lead to amputation. Its in-home remote patient monitoring system collects data on foot temperature each day so that caregivers can detect and respond to problems quickly even when patients aren’t feeling physical pain. mr3health.com
InnerAlly Inc. founders know mental health matters even when you don’t have time to attend a mindfulness meetup. Thanks to this mobile app, you can work on positive self-talk and your own inner dialogue through character-driven games that when used regularly are meant to improve relationships and help decrease depression and anxiety. innerally.com
Enflux makes big data less intimidating and tedious for universities thanks to its automated data extraction, organization and analysis. Led by CEO Alejandra Zertuche, who has an MBA from St. Mary’s University and a master’s in biomedical informatics from UT Health at Houston, Enflux integrates and analyzes data across multiple platforms, providing a holistic view of a higher education institution, program or even the effectiveness of a student. The Enflux approach to data also reduces or eliminates accreditation challenges (think for medical or pharmacy schools), which can be numerous for institutions that had been manually collecting and analyzing data in-house. enflux.com
MERGE goes beyond a digital screen in the classroom with experiential learning through its augmented and virtual reality (VR) products meant for kids, educators and professionals. Through VR, children can explore the solar system, study fossils and more. Part toy and part educational tool, their MERGE Cube (available for purchase online) has won awards from the American Library Association and Tech & Learning for the accessibility and ease at which it allows students to virtually access the intricacies of almost any subject matter. mergevr.com
5 programs helping to develop the next generation of curious industry leaders
CAST Tech High School
This industry-led, charter high school in San Antonio ISD is the first of its kind and focuses on preparing students to confidently enter high-demand careers (or higher ed programs) in computer science, information technology, user experience and business. schools.saisd.net
UTSA’s B.B.A. in Cyber Security
An interdisciplinary program that teaches the importance of cybersecurity in business, this program is offered fully online or in-person (at the soon-to-expand downtown campus). It’s been ranked the nation’s top cybersecurity program by Ponemon. business.utsa.edu/programs/cyber-security/
Codeup
Whether your expertise is in computer science, communication or customer service, Codeup can train you for a new career as a computer programmer, data scientist or data-driven problem solver with its two 20-week programs. codeup.com
Open Cloud Academy
Another option for those who aim to get into tech, Rackspace’s Open Cloud Academy equips students for an entry-level IT career in as short as 13 weeks. Instructors come from Rackspace and about 35 percent of graduates find employment there, says Academy director Marcus Benavidez, adding that other graduates have helped fill demand for staff at tech companies throughout the area. opencloudacademy.rackspace.com
Youth Code Jam
Former mom blogger Debi Pfitzenmaier created this nonprofit so that all youth would have access to “the critical literacy of coding.” To help build the next generation’s coding skills, the organization holds a free annual community “code jam” (this year’s is Sept. 28 at ESC Region 20), in which over 1,000 students, parents and volunteers come together to code using a variety of tools. It also hosts summer camps, after-school coding clubs and teacher professional development. youthcodejam.org
Dryden Labs is a digital marketing agency that develops apps and websites plus a whole host of other services—from social media management and SEO to email marketing, cloud hosting and branding and design. drydenlabs.com
iNNOV8, based at Geekdom, provides website help for all types of businesses. Think website theme customization, content organization and management and implementing best practices so companies show up in Google searches. CEO Stefanie Young is a former FrontEnd developer with Grok Interactive and she’s joined in the venture by COO Lorne Barfield, another Grok veteran. innov8.place
Pear Analytics has offices in Dallas and Houston but its headquarters is in San Antonio, where it was founded from a home office in 2008. Now a boutique digital marketing firm, it helps clients with advertising management on Google, LinkedIn and Facebook, email marketing, HubSpot automation, SEO, brand strategy, advanced analytics as well as web design and development. It won a contract to train the U.S. Army on analytics in 2015, rebuilt the Fiesta San Antonio website in 2017 and last year launched an Applicant Management System for nonprofit foundation groups. pearanalytics.com
Pressable, is one of the oldest startups from Geekdom. Founder and former CEO Vid Luther originally launched the company as ZippyKid in 2010. The WordPress hosting company experienced incredible growth and Luther rebranded as Pressable in 2013 in response to the company’s expanding clientele, which has included Fortune 100 businesses, nonprofit agencies, freelancers, developers, marketers and WooCommerce operators. pressable.com
Third-generation East Side San Antonian becomes tech community advocate
While the tech industry is a focus of Brian Dillard’s role as chief innovative officer for the city of San Antonio, it’s not what fuels him. “One of the things my team and I believe in is that San Antonio is not tech-driven. It’s all community-driven,” says Dillard, who grew up on the East Side and initially joined the city in 2018 as its Smart City administrator. “We do things to address what our community needs on a day-to-day basis, whether that means traffic congestion, air quality or addressing the digital divide.”
By doing that, he says, they’re helping create a city that will not only attract tech companies and entrepreneurs but also be the kind of place people in lots of industries want to live and work.
The leadership role is not one Dillard saw for himself when he enrolled at UTSA in 2002 to study aerospace engineering. He failed one of his classes that first semester and, knowing he couldn’t afford to stay if he didn’t succeed, went to an Air Force recruiter to enlist. The recruiter recommended Dillard pursue cybersecurity in the military, in part because of an IT certificate he’d earned at Sam Houston High School, and his career developed from there.
After earning his degree online and serving 10 years on active duty as a cybersecurity operations specialist, Dillard went into the private sector, working with places like Chevron, Delta Risk and Lockheed Martin. He realized during that time, though, that the biggest difference he was making in San Antonio was not at work but as president of the Dignowity Hill Neighborhood Association.
In his current position, he’s able to combine his experience in the tech world with his passion for building up his hometown. “You have to prioritize what’s most important for the community and take an equitable approach to solving those issues,” Dillard says.—CW
The SA-based oil and gas investment portfolios also include the chance to invest in bitcoin that’s mined on the same site as natural gas
There’s something to do at literally any hour of the day in the Alamo City. Here, we outline a few suggestions for a full 24 hours fun.
Florence Barrera sparkles with creativity and drive as she aims to expand her fashion brand
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200 E. Grayson St., Ste. 107
San Antonio, TX 78215
210-268-1100
© 2022 Open Sky Media
All rights reserved
Website by Web Publisher PRO
Latest
How a faulty CrowdStike update crashed computers around the world
Published
3 months agoon
July 20, 2024
Airlines, banks, hospitals and other risk-averse organizations around the world chose cybersecurity company CrowdStrike to protect their computer systems from hackers and data breaches.
But all it took was one faulty CrowdStrike software update to cause global disruptions Friday that grounded flights, knocked banks and media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, retailers and other services.
“This is a function of the very homogenous technology that goes into the backbone of all of our IT infrastructure,” said Gregory Falco, an assistant professor of engineering at Cornell University. “What really causes this mess is that we rely on very few companies, and everybody uses the same folks, so everyone goes down at the same time.”
The trouble with the update issued by CrowdStrike and affecting computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system was not a hacking incident or cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
But it wasn’t an easy fix. It required “boots on the ground” to remediate, said Gartner analyst Eric Grenier.
“The fix is working, it’s just a very manual process and there’s no magic key to unlock it,” Grenier said. “I think that is probably what companies are struggling with the most here.”
While not everyone is a client of CrowdStrike and its platform known as Falcon, it is one of the leading cybersecurity providers, particularly in transportation, healthcare, banking and other sectors that have a lot at stake in keeping their computer systems working.
“They’re usually risk-averse organizations that don’t want something that’s crazy innovative, but that can work and also cover their butts when something goes wrong. That’s what CrowdStrike is,” Falco said. “And they’re looking around at their colleagues in other sectors and saying, ‘Oh, you know, this company also uses that, so I’m gonna need them, too.’”
Worrying about the fragility of a globally connected technology ecosystem is nothing new. It’s what drove fears in the 1990s of a technical glitch that could cause chaos at the turn of the millennium.
“This is basically what we were all worried about with Y2K, except it’s actually happened this time,” wrote Australian cybersecurity consultant Troy Hunt on the social platform X.
Across the world Friday, affected computers were showing the “blue screen of death” — a sign that something went wrong with Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
But what’s different now is “that these companies are even more entrenched,” Falco said. “We like to think that we have a lot of players available. But at the end of the day, the biggest companies use all the same stuff.”
Founded in 2011 and publicly traded since 2019, CrowdStrike describes itself in its annual report to financial regulators as having “reinvented cybersecurity for the cloud era and transformed the way cybersecurity is delivered and experienced by customers.” It emphasizes its use of artificial intelligence in helping to keep pace with adversaries. It reported having 29,000 subscribing customers at the start of the year.
The Austin, Texas-based firm is one of the more visible cybersecurity companies in the world and spends heavily on marketing, including Super Bowl ads. At cybersecurity conferences, it’s known for large booths displaying massive action-figure statues representing different state-sponsored hacking groups that CrowdStrike technology promises to defend against.
CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz is among the most highly compensated in the world, recording more than $230 million in total compensation in the last three years. Kurtz is also a driver for a CrowdStrike-sponsored car racing team.
After his initial statement about the problem was criticized for lack of contrition, Kurtz apologized in a later social media post Friday and on NBC’s “Today Show.”
“We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption,” he said on X.
Richard Stiennon, a cybersecurity industry analyst, said this was a historic mistake by CrowdStrike.
“This is easily the worst faux pas, technical faux pas or glitch of any security software provider ever,” said Stiennon, who has tracked the cybersecurity industry for 24 years.
While the problem is an easy technical fix, he said, it’s impact could be long-lasting for some organizations because of the hands-on work needed to fix each affected computer. “It’s really, really difficult to touch millions of machines. And people are on vacation right now, so, you know, the CEO will be coming back from his trip to the Bahamas in a couple of weeks and he won’t be able to use his computers.”
Stiennon said he did not think the outage revealed a bigger problem with the cybersecurity industry or CrowdStrike as a company.
“The markets are going to forgive them, the customers are going to forgive them, and this will blow over,” he said.
Forrester analyst Allie Mellen credited CrowdStrike for clearly telling customers what they need to do to fix the problem. But to restore trust, she said there will need to be a deeper look at what occurred and what changes can be made to prevent it from happening again.
“A lot of this is likely to come down to the testing and software development process and the work that they’ve put into testing these kinds of updates before deployment,” Mellen said. “But until we see the complete retrospective, we won’t know for sure what the failure was.”
___
Associated Press writer Alan Suderman in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
Business
Worldwide IT outage: Airlines rush to get back on track
Published
3 months agoon
July 20, 2024
Transport providers, businesses and governments on Saturday are rushing to get all their systems back online after long disruptions following a widespread technology outage.
The biggest continuing effect has been on air travel. Carriers canceled thousands of flights on Friday and now have many of their planes and crews in the wrong place, while airports facing continued problems with checking in and security.
At the heart of the massive disruption is CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm that provides software to scores of companies worldwide. The company says the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows, noting that the issue behind the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
Here’s the Latest:
Microsoft: 8.5 million devices on its Windows system were affected
Microsoft says 8.5 million devices running its Windows operating system were affected by a faulty cybersecurity update Friday that led to worldwide disruptions.
A Saturday blog post from Microsoft was the first estimate of the scope of the disruptions caused by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike’s software update.
“We currently estimate that CrowdStrike’s update affected 8.5 million Windows devices, or less than one percent of all Windows machines,” said the blog post from Microsoft cybersecurity executive David Weston.
“While the percentage was small, the broad economic and societal impacts reflect the use of CrowdStrike by enterprises that run many critical services.”
Weston said such a significant disturbance is rare but “demonstrates the interconnected nature of our broad ecosystem.” Windows is the dominant operating system for personal computers around the world.
Austrian doctors’ group calls for better data protection for patients
In Austria, a leading doctors organization said the global IT outage exposed the vulnerability of health systems reliant on digital systems.
“Yesterday’s incidents underscore how important it is for hospitals to have analogue backups” to safeguard patient care, Harald Mayer, vice president of the Austrian Chamber of Doctors, said in a statement on the organization’s website.
The organization called on governments to impose high standards in patient data protection and security and on health providers to train staff and put systems in place to manage crises.
“Happily, where there were problems, these were kept small and short-lived and many areas of care were unaffected” in Austria, Mayer said.
Germany warns of scams after major IT outage
BERLIN — The German government’s IT security agency says numerous companies are still struggling with the consequences of a far-reaching technology outage.
“Many business processes and procedures have been disturbed by the breakdown of computer systems,” the BSI agency said on its website.
But the agency also said Saturday that many impacted areas have returned to normal.
It warned that cybercriminals were trying to take advantage of the situation through phishing, fake websites and other scams and that “unofficial” software code was in circulation.
The agency said it was not yet clear how faulty code ended up in the CrowdStrike software update blamed for triggering the outage.
European airports appear to be close to normal
LONDON — Europe’s busiest airport, Heathrow, said it is busy but operating normally on Saturday. The airport said in a statement that “all systems are back up and running and passengers are getting on with their journeys smoothly.“
Some 167 flights scheduled to depart from U.K. airports on Friday were canceled, while 171 flights due to land were axed.
Meanwhile, flights at Berlin Airport were departing on or close to schedule, German news agency dpa reported, citing an airport spokesman.
Nineteen flights took off in the early hours of Saturday after authorities exempted them from the usual ban on night flights.
On Friday, 150 of the 552 scheduled inbound and outbound flights at the airport were canceled over the IT outage, disrupting the plans of thousands of passengers at the start of the summer vacation season in the German capital.
German hospital slowly restoring its systems after widespread cancellations
BERLIN — The Schleswig-Holstein University Hospital in northern Germany, which on Friday canceled all elective surgery because of the global IT outage, said Saturday that it was gradually restoring its systems.
In a statement on its website, it forecast that operations at its two branches in Kiel and Luebeck would return to normal by Monday and that “elective surgery can take place as planned and our ambulances can return to service.”
Britain’s transport system still trying to get back on track
LONDON — Britain’s travel and transport industries are struggling to get back on schedule after the global security outage with airline passengers facing cancellations and delays on the first day of summer holidays for many school pupils.
Gatwick Airport said “a majority” of scheduled flights were expected to take off. Manchester Airport said passengers were being checked in manually and there could be last-minute cancellations.
The Port of Dover said it was seeing an influx of displaced air passengers, with hourlong waits to enter the port to catch ferries to France.
Meanwhile, Britain’s National Cyber Security Center warned people and businesses to be on the lookout for phishing attempts as “opportunistic malicious actors” try to take advantage of the outage.
The National Cyber Security Center’s former head, Ciaran Martin, said the worst of the crisis was over, “because the nature of the crisis is that it went very wrong very quickly. It was spotted quite quickly and essentially it was turned off.”
He told Sky News that some businesses would be able to get back to normal very quickly, but for sectors such as aviation it would take longer.
“If you’re in aviation, you’ve got people, planes and staffs all stranded in the wrong place… So we are looking at days. I’d be surprised if we’re looking at weeks.”
Germany airline expects most of its flights to run normally
BERLIN — Eurowings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, said it expected to return to “largely scheduled” flight operations on Saturday.
On Friday, the global IT outage had forced the airline to cancel about 20% of its flights, mostly on domestic routes. Passengers were asked to take trains instead.
“Online check-in, check-in at the airport, boarding processes, booking and rebooking flights are all possible again,” the airline said Saturday on X. “However, due to the considerable extent of the global IT disruption there may still be isolated disruptions” for passengers, it said.
Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates have canceled hundreds of flights
DALLAS — Delta Air Lines and its regional affiliates canceled more than a quarter of their schedule on the East Coast by midafternoon Friday, aviation data provider Cirium said.
More than 1,100 flights for Delta and its affiliates have been canceled.
United and United Express had canceled more than 500 flights, or 12% of their schedule, and American Airlines’ network had canceled 450 flights, 7.5% of its schedule.
Southwest and Alaska do not use the CrowdStrike software that led to the global internet outages and had canceled fewer than a half-dozen flights each.
Portland, Oregon, mayor declares an emergency over the outage
PORTLAND, Ore. — Mayor Ted Wheeler declared an emergency Friday after more than half of the city’s computer systems were affected by the global internet outage.
Wheeler said during a news conference that while emergency services calls weren’t interrupted, dispatchers were having to manually track 911 calls with pen and paper for a few hours. He said 266 of the city’s 487 computer systems were affected.
Border crossings into the US are delayed
SAN DIEGO — People seeking to enter the U.S. from both the north and the south found that the border crossings were delayed by the internet outage.
The San Ysidro Port of Entry was gridlocked Friday morning with pedestrians waiting three hours to cross, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Even cars with people approved for a U.S. Customers and Border Protection “Trusted Traveler” program for low-risk passengers waited up to 90 minutes. The program, known as SENTRI, moves passengers more quickly through customs and passport control if they make an appointment for an interview and submit to a background check to travel through customs and passport control more quickly when they arrive in the U.S.
Meanwhile, at the U.S.-Canada border, Windsor Police reported long delays at the crossings at the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
Latest
European Union accuses Microsoft of breaching antitrust rules by bundling Teams with office software
Published
4 months agoon
June 25, 2024
LONDON (AP) — Microsoft violated European Union antitrust rules with “possibly abusive” practices by tying its Teams messaging and videoconferencing app to its widely used business software, the bloc said.
The European Commission said Monday it informed Microsoft of its preliminary view that the U.S. tech giant has been “restricting competition” by bundling Teams with core office productivity applications such as Office 365 and Microsoft 365.
The commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top antitrust enforcer, said it suspects Microsoft might have granted Teams a “distribution advantage” by not giving customers a choice on whether to have Teams when they purchased the software. The advantage might have been widened by limits on the ability of rival messaging apps to work with Microsoft software, it said.
“We are concerned that Microsoft may be giving its own communication product Teams an undue advantage over competitors, by tying it to its popular productivity suites for businesses,” Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s executive vice-president for competition policy, said in a statement.
“And preserving competition for remote communication and collaboration tools is essential as it also fosters innovation on these markets.”
The commission took aim at Microsoft a day after accusing Apple of breaching the bloc’s new digital competition rulebook, in a flurry of regulatory action underlining Brussels’ leading role as a watchdog for Big Tech companies.
Microsoft made some changes last year in an effort to head off an penalty, including offering the software packages without Teams for European customers. But the commission said Tuesday the changes are not enough to address its concerns and that it needs to do more to “restore competition.”
“Having unbundled Teams and taken initial interoperability steps, we appreciate the additional clarity provided today and will work to find solutions to address the Commission‘s remaining concerns.” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a prepared statement.
In April, the company also gave customers worldwide the option to get Microsoft 365 and Office 365 without Teams. The two software suites include programs like Word, Excel and Outlook.
Microsoft now has a chance to respond to the accusations, formally known as a statement of objections, before the commission makes its final decision. The company could face a fine worth up to 10% of its annual global revenue, or be forced to carry out “remedies” to satisfy the competition concerns.
The commission opened its investigation in July 2023 after rival Slack Technologies, which makes popular workplace messaging software, filed a complaint with Brussels. Alfaview, which makes videoconferencing software, also filed a separate complaint.
Slack, owned by business software maker Salesforce, had alleged that Microsoft abused its market dominance to eliminate competition — in violation of EU laws.
“The Statement of Objections issued today by the European Commission is a win for customer choice and an affirmation that Microsoft’s practices with Teams have harmed competition,” Salesforce President Sabastian Niles said. “We appreciate the Commission’s thorough investigation of Slack’s complaint and urge the Commission to move towards a swift, binding, and effective remedy that restores free and fair choice and promotes competition, interoperability, and innovation in the digital ecosystem.”