NEWSLETTER-2017

122 NEWSLETTER 2017 Professional Social Network Services The Commission looked at whether, after the Transaction, Mi- crosoft could use its strong market position in operating systems (Windows) for personal computers (PCs) and productivity software (including Outlook, Word, Excel and Power Point) to strengthen LinkedIn’s position among professional social networks. In that re- spect, the Commission was concerned whether Microsoft would take advantage of its strong market position by pre-installing LinkedIn on all Windows PC’s, integrating LinkedIn into Microsoft Office, and combine, to the extent allowed by contract and applicable privacy laws, LinkedIn’s and Microsoft’s user databases and, thus, shutting out LinkedIn’s competitors from access to Microsoft’s application programming interfaces 8 . The Commission found that these measures could significantly enhance LinkedIn’s visibility, LinkedIn would be able to expand its user base and activity, and it was also concerned that the increase in LinkedIn’s user base would make it more difficult for new players to start providing professional social networking services in the European Economic Area 9 . The Commission’s serious doubts arising from the Transaction in relation to the foreclosure of competing professional social network service providers caused Microsoft to offer a series of commitments to the Commission in order for the Transaction to be cleared. Customer Relationship Management Software Solutions The Commission considered whether after the Transaction, Mi- crosoft would be able to shut out its competitors by obliging customer relationship management customers buying LinkedIn’s sales intel- ligence solutions also to purchase Microsoft’s customer relationship management software, denying its competitors access to the full LinkedIn database, thus preventing them from developing advanced customer relationship management functionalities also through ma- chine learning 10 . 8 European Commission - Press release. 9 European Commission - Press release. 10 European Commission - Press release.