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Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#201

Post by kohtatsu »

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #189
nothis wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs once said about Microsoft that their only problem is that they have no taste. And it's decisions like this that illustrate what he meant. TikTok is such a clash with everything Microsoft stands for as a company (if there is such a thing). It makes no sense.

It's still a $1T+ company, that's the metric that matters when evaluating the "worth" of a business. So in that sense, the market has a "taste" for Microsoft.

Honestly I don't give a flying fuck about a company's market cap, I care about what it offers to me and the world.

Markets are a means to an end, not something to fetishize.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#202

Post by kyle-rb »

elorant wrote: post #184
kumarvvr wrote: post #131

What value does Microsoft get out of this? Looks like a desperate deal pushed by TikTok to get rid of "Chinese spyware" tag. The deal makes no absolute sense.

They gain access to a huge community of mostly young people to promote their gaming products. You pair it with a good chat service, which they already have through Teams or Skype, and then you can take on Twitch or Discord, which are also gaining a lot of traction.

> you can take on Twitch or Discord

Microsoft already tried to take on Twitch, with Mixer, and failed. (Gamers will probably be wary about jumping onto Microsoft's next doomed platform.)

And anecdotally, Discord replaced Skype for a lot of people in the gaming community, and I don't see people leaving it very easily.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#203

Post by mullingitover »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #99
franklampard wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is TikTok really state-sponsored? Do you have any source?

The CEO and cofounder has gone on record ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/05/tiktok-... , linking to a parent source https://chinamediaproject.org/2018/04/11/tech-shame-in-the-n... ) pledging that he'd run the company in accordance with socialist values and the principles of Xi Jinping Thought. The degree of financial relationship is unknown and probably unknowable, but it seems clear that ByteDanc…

Even if TikTok was openly promoting socialism - so what? The constitution doesn't split hairs about free speech. We're free to use speech to promote the political philosophy of our choosing in this country. The antidote to 'bad' speech, as per the constitution, is more speech, not to outlaw the speech you don't like.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#204

Post by noarchy »

basch wrote: post #185
noarchy wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This seems like a dumb move, why would MS want to get tied up in the horrors of social media when they have such a profitable empire. They bought LinkedIn, which increasingly resembles a niche social media for professionals, all the way down to a news feed that is increasingly filled with motivational junk Then there's Github, which used to advertise itself as "social coding". Microsoft has done plenty already to ge…

would Minecraft almost fit into that as well? At least from the sense of buying an existing community.

Maybe, though to be fair Microsoft is far from being a newcomer to the gaming scene. Even before the Xbox, they were putting their name on games.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#206

Post by ericmay »

glglwty wrote: post #183
ericmay wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, probably because that's not what is happening. The US has the right to ban companies from the country (as do other countries). What the US is saying is that the parent company (Bytedance) bust divest Tik Tok or they'll lose access to the US market. Microsoft is interested in it, but it could be a different company buying it. This is different than "you must sell this company to this other company" because the U…

Is there any precedence where the executive branch just ban a foreign company without citing the violation of law and going through court or WTO, in the last century?

Yep ->

"That order marked the sixth time a U.S. president has either blocked a deal or ordered a corporate selloff since Congress authorized the power to intervene in 1988."

WSJ - https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-to-sign-order-demanding-c...

I don't know the details of the others, but one that comes to mind (and maybe is mentioned in the article?) is the blocked acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom.

-edit-

The circumstances around some of these may not be exactly the same, but the derivation of power comes from the same source.

Also who cares about the WTO? I don't see the WTO being involved when China forces majority-owned joint ventures or outright bans US companies from operating there. Why would a court be involved either? Bytedance is welcome to sue, I suppose, but Trump (in this case) has the power to issue this order. I guess if we don't like that since it's being used now, we should have Congress vote to take that power away from the current and future presidents.

I'm in favor of this move overall. Besides the toxicity of social networking in general, I just don't see a point in letting Chinese technology companies operate in the US unless it's strictly under favorable terms for us. If they don't like it, then I guess maybe they should let US companies operate freely in their country. This will increasingly end up happening and I say good. China will grow tech companies, and the US will force them to divest or not operate in the US once there is significant money at stake until China plays fair. If they don't want to, well, that's just no big deal. We're doing just fine.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#207

Post by vogre »

kohtatsu wrote: post #201
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a $1T+ company, that's the metric that matters when evaluating the "worth" of a business. So in that sense, the market has a "taste" for Microsoft.

Honestly I don't give a flying fuck about a company's market cap, I care about what it offers to me and the world. Markets are a means to an end, not something to fetishize.

Market cap is actually a quite precise estimation of what company offers to the world.

Money is just information about usefulness. If you are useful to other people you've got money. If someone is useful to you, you give money.

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#208

Post by phonon »

app4soft wrote: post #162
lhorie wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jokes aside, it probably would be a nice addition to their consumer-oriented portfolio (i.e. xbox, minecraft, etc), if they're planning to stay relevant in the FAANG-taking-over-the-world state of reality these days.

> to their consumer-oriented portfolio (i.e. xbox, minecraft, etc) Yeah. Symbian, Meego,..

Maybe they're relaunching their Sidekick phones!

Re: Microsoft is reportedly in talks to buy TikTok's US operations

#210

Post by gonehome »

slipheen wrote: post #64

I think it's a clever play. It would help address the spyware concern by moving it to a US company, and give them a better foothold in Social Networking than Linked-in provides. I'd have a few concerns about if MS can keep it growing- For one, I worry that Microsoft may mismanage it, similar to how they treated Skype. We saw Yahoo buy many reasonable smaller social networks (Flickr, Delicious, Tumblr) and was never a…

Outlook is one of the few services approved in China (I have a western friend that lives there and is constantly fighting with VPNs/trying to use the services he wants).

Outlook pesters you for a Chinese phone number (internet phone doesn't work), probably so it's easier for the users to be tracked.

I assume they've made whatever CCP requirements are necessary in order to operate there.

That said, they'd at least protect western accounts in the US if they bought TikTok.

Like Github and LinkedIn, I think this would be a smart move. Microsoft has also been a lot better stewards of these companies than they were back in the days of the Skype acquisition (2011, Steve Ballmer time). It's still amazing the turn around they've had after Ballmer left, people underestimate the effect of bad leadership at the top.

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