Microsoft's 21 billion purchase of social network site LinkedIn is likely to gain EU approval, following reported agreement with the European Commission over a number of concessions this week. Antitrust regulators initially raised concerns that the buyout would give Microsoft an unfair advantage in the market, suffocating rival services. But Microsoft recently said it would allow LinkedIn rivals to access its Outlook add-ins program, according to Reuters, and, subsequently, that it would allow desktop manufacturers such as Dell and HP to disable LinkedIn and install other social services if they wished. The latest concessions came after the EU sought feedback from a number of customers and rival companies, according to sources close to the deal, speaking to Reuters. The deal has drawn the attention of EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager, who warned in January that a tougher stance would be taken against tech firms seeking to gain larger market shares. Vestager has since been scrutinising the deal to decide if it should pass EU regulatory rules. Lawyer Stephen Kinsella, whose firm has advised Microsoft on antitrust issues in the past, believes that raising concerns over deals of this type would "introduce too much uncertainty into the merger review process" and place "unreasonable burden" on competition enforcers, muddying the waters for any future deals.

However US rival bidder Salesforce, which is believed to have given feedback to the EU, argues that the merger is anti-competitive and a threat to innovation. Microsoft has always maintained that the deal is a response to growing competition in the job-hunting market, as Facebook continues to expand into other services. IT Pro approached Microsoft but the firm declined to comment. The EU Commission has made no official statement but maintains that the investigation is "ongoing", according to an email to IT Pro. The EU Commission is scheduled to meet on the 6 December, and is likely to agree to the $26 billion buyout, Microsoft's largest ever deal. Regulators in the US, Australia, Canada, Brazil and South Africa have already given the go ahead without concessions. 24/11/2016: Microsoft offers EU concessions over Outlook Microsoft will allow the integration of rival professional networks into Outlook if it is given permission by the EU to buy LinkedIn, reports have suggested. Last week, the tech giant said it would allow the social network's rivals to access its Outlook add-ins program, giving them the tools to integrate Outlook APIs into their services. This means some nuggets of information, such as bios, pictures or other data could be pulled into the email application automatically. Services likely to use this additional feature include German business-professionals network XING, which could integrate its features with Outlook's calendar to display information about attendees. Following qualms from antitrust regulators who said it would be unfair if Microsoft could bundle products into the Windows OS, the software giant said it would allow manufacturers such as Dell and HP to disable the LinkedIn shortcut on desktops if they so wish. However, Salesforce, which lost out to Microsoft in the LinkedIn bidding war, still objects to the lack of access LinkedIn's competitors will have to the huge swathes of data it holds.