Microsoft’s new chief marketing officer Takeshi Numoto is known for aggressively bundling (and raising prices) of the company’s products, according to The Information’s recent profile of the executive. As Numoto takes the helm, he will be in charge of getting customers to pay for its AI products, potentially by bundling them with other offerings.
But the company is already facing criticism for making it so expensive to run its software thanks to its bundling plans. Adding AI into the mix could complicate things further.
“Microsoft has shown this pattern of bundling products aggressively, which could limit potential competition,” said David Balto, an antitrust lawyer in Washington and former assistant director at the FTC who has often favored government moves to weaken monopolies and has previously consulted for tech firms including Google.
