Analysis Arguments over the retirement of Office 365 connectors within Teams shows no sign of abating, with some users pointing to the EU-forced unbundling of the product, while analysts are wondering if this a sign of a new, pricier, era for the application.

Microsoft dropped the bombshell on users at the beginning of July, with the announcement that Office 365 connectors within Teams are to end. From August 15, the company will block all connector creation, and from October 1, all connectors within all clouds will stop working.

The recommended replacement is Power Automate workflows, a solution that is less than palatable for many users due to several factors that include cost and capability.

A number of users, including Register reader Brian Mahoney, a Seattle-based Technology Product Leader, pointed the finger of blame at the consequences of the EC investigation that led to Microsoft unbundling Teams from Microsoft 365.

Microsoft confirmed the unbundling last year after the European Commission said it would be kicking off a formal investigation into the tying together of Teams with Microsoft's productivity suites.

At the time, the company promised it would "do more to make interoperability easier between rival communication and collaboration solutions and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites."

Microsoft did not, however, issue a promise to ruin the summer vacations of administrators tasked with integrating the software with Power Automate workflows.

Directions on Microsoft noted: "Independent of what Microsoft is required to do by European regulators in the Teams case, there are still some likely pricing and licensing patterns customers should expect based on history.

Resident analyst analyst Jim Gaynor, said that Teams had exited its "golden child" status within Microsoft, "as such, it's been sent off to the 'cash cow' mines of widely adopted products and services (joining Office, Windows, and others) to use its market position to generate more revenue and to help boost the profile of the newest cadre of golden children."

Children such as Microsoft's current Copilot obsession. Indeed, a few years ago it would have been difficult to imagine the company abruptly pulling the rug from beneath administrators in favor of more expensive services for Teams. Now, however, all bets are off.

"The message for customers is that these new products that Microsoft was heavily promoting a handful of years ago, that you wove into your business, are now entering the ARPU [Average Revenue Per User]-focused phase," said Directions' Gaynor.

"So, you're going to see prices increase, the pace of new features not tied to add-ons drop off precipitously, interoperation with things outside the Microsoft ecosystem dry up, and previously included capabilities cut in favor of similar-but-different things that boost other initiatives."

When we asked Microsoft for its reasoning behind the retirement, the company thought for a few days before insisting it was all to do with its "ongoing commitment to security." ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/07/15/teams_connector_requirement/