Microsoft Dropped from Acquiring TikTok
The race for buying popular yet controversial short-video Chinese app, TikTok in the US is set to end by September 15 this week. While many speculated it to be Microsoft who’ll be buying it at the end, it turns out the other way. Microsoft announced yesterday that TikTok’s owner, ByteDance said it won’t be selling its US operations to Microsoft. ByteDance has earlier, just as China’s recent changes in export trade deals, confirmed that it won’t be selling the TikTok’s algorithm as a part of the deal. This is an important part that may have made ByteDance drop Microsoft as the partner. The core algorithm is more like TikTok’s secret juice, that relies upon the extensive data it collects from its users to suggests them with relevant videos to stream. Since Microsoft need the algorithm to be reviewed and corrected if needed to make it more trusted, ByteDance could have pulled out Microsoft because if this. Well, Microsoft reiterated that it could tune the platform to meet highest security standards as prescribed by authorities if bought out, and said they’d “look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas.”
Oracle Wins the Bid
On the other hand, Oracle fills the space left by Microsoft as a partner of ByteDance in the US. Oracle has jumped into the talks of acquiring TikTok after Microsoft, and now becomes offical partner as per WSJ report. The cloud service company has no previous experience in dealing with a social media platform. People familiar with the matter said this deal between Oracle and ByteDance should more likely be termed as a partnership rather than an acquisition since critical assets of each other’s aren’t shared, as Microsoft wanted. Yet, this reported deal should go under review by the US government and Committee on Foreign Investment in the US.
