Microsoft is still the biggest potential buyer of tiktok to achieve “social” ambitions?

The addition of tiktok makes the acquisition of tiktok more complicated. On August 18, according to the financial times, Oracle is in talks to acquire tiktok’s business in four countries and has accelerated in recent days. < / P > < p > unlike Blackstone, which is also reported to join the acquisition team, Oracle is Microsoft’s competitor in the main business. However, the entry of Oracle has made the situation more complicated. < / P > < p > for Microsoft, the acquisition has been difficult from the beginning. Compared with Microsoft’s determination to buy tiktok’s U.S. business, Microsoft employees are not optimistic about the acquisition. On August 11, according to foreign media reports, a survey conducted within Microsoft showed that 63% of employees opposed Microsoft’s acquisition of tiktok. Some employees said it would be “immoral” for Microsoft to seek the deal when tiktok was coerced by the US government, which would damage its reputation. In addition to the opposition of employees, Microsoft founder Bill Gates also said in an interview with foreign media on August 10 that it would not be easy for Microsoft to acquire some businesses of tiktok. However, according to the official statement of Microsoft, Microsoft confirmed on August 2 that the company was discussing the acquisition with byte jump, and said that Microsoft CEO had held a dialogue with President trump. This means that Microsoft will continue to push ahead with the acquisition. In 1997, Microsoft launched MSN Messenger, a well-known real-time communication product, but with the rise of other social applications, MSN Messenger has to withdraw from the market. In March 2013, Microsoft closed MSN Messenger, a real-time communication software, in addition to the mainland of China. In October 2014, MSN Messenger officially withdrew from the Chinese market. < p > < p > in 2012, Microsoft launched student and social networks So.cl , but announced in March 2017 So.cl close. Then in 2017, Microsoft launched who’s in, an IMessage application focusing on organizing activities, but still failed. < p > < p > in May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype, a real-time communication product, for $8.5 billion. In June 2012, Microsoft acquired yammer, an enterprise social network service provider, for $1.2 billion. < / P > < p > in June 2016, Microsoft announced the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. The deal was considered a failure by many analysts. According to emarketer, a research firm, the growth of LinkedIn’s users in the U.S. market is declining year by year. In 2018, LinkedIn’s user growth rate in the U.S. market was 12.1%, which was 8.8% in 2019. By 2020, emarketer estimated that the user growth rate would drop to 6.2%. < p > < p > in 2018, American media analyst Porter Bibb predicted that Microsoft might try to acquire Netflix to enter the streaming media industry. < / P > < p > tiktok, which has both social attributes and content production, has made up for its own shortcomings for Microsoft. The opportunity to acquire tiktok this time is a surprise to Microsoft. Fang Xingdong, founder of the internet lab, told reporters from China first finance and economics that if there is no political factor involved, byte skipping will not consider selling tiktok, so this is an unexpected opportunity for Microsoft. < / P > < p > at the same time, the high growth of tiktok makes this deal very attractive. “Tiktok is the fastest short video platform in the past five years, and it is also the most popular outlet at present,” Fang said. If tiktok can maintain its previous growth rate in the US market, it will be very attractive to Microsoft. From the perspective of its own development, Microsoft has missed several times. If it had not grasped cloud computing, Microsoft might have been marginalized. So Microsoft’s own sense of crisis will make it seize the next opportunity through acquisition. ” < / P > < p > in the first place, other potential buyers are facing antitrust investigations. “In the United States, there are a total of five technology companies that are suitable and powerful to acquire tiktok, including apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, but the other four are under anti-monopoly investigation by the government, and the acquisition is not suitable at this time,” Fang said < / P > < p > in addition to its social ambitions, Microsoft’s better financial situation is also the key to the acquisition. As of August 10, Microsoft’s current market value is $1.54 trillion. According to the fy2020 report, Microsoft currently has $136 billion in cash and short-term investments that can be converted into cash. Fang Xingdong said that judging from the market value and cash flow of Microsoft, the acquisition with a value of between 30 billion and 50 billion US dollars is worth a try for Microsoft. < / P > < p > even if the opportunities and funds are suitable, it is still difficult for Microsoft to acquire tiktok. Dong Yizhi, a lawyer from Shanghai Yida law firm, told reporters from China first finance and economics that the acquisition of Microsoft will face three problems: < / P > < p > first of all, the valuation of tiktok business is still under discussion. “It is not clear whether the acquisition target is the US business, or the business in Canada, Australia and other regions, or a wider global business,” Mr Tung said. If the acquisition object is different, the valuation will be different. In addition, at present, there are several measures for the valuation of tiktok’s US business. There is a view that if it is valued at business value, it is about $50 billion. If compared with similar products, tiktok’s US business can be valued at $90 billion. ” Secondly, it is difficult to complete the acquisition in a short time. On August 3, U.S. President trump said at a White House press conference that if tiktok has not been acquired by the United States on September 15, it will stop tiktok’s U.S. operations. This means that Microsoft has at most 45 days to buy after the news of the acquisition came out on August 1. Dong Yizhi said that this acquisition is different from the ordinary acquisition. From the perspective of Microsoft, the time is far from enough. Large amount of transactions need to be evaluated by both parties, and then negotiation, legal process, audit, delivery and other links are required. If Microsoft’s acquisition is not just a U.S. business, it will be more complicated. For Oracle’s intervention, Dong Yizhi thinks that Oracle and tiktok are completely different in business. “Oracle’s business is almost all oriented to b-end, and it is not likely to acquire tiktok.” Oracle is more interested in becoming a rival to Microsoft than it is to acquire tiktok. Dong Yizhi said that raising the price of the acquisition or making the acquisition go bad may be a situation Oracle would like to see. However, the problems faced by Microsoft are not limited to acquisition. After the acquisition, Microsoft’s ability to integrate new businesses is even more challenging. “Judging from the history of Microsoft’s acquisition, the effect of cross-border acquisition by Microsoft is not ideal, such as LinkedIn and Skype,” said Dong. From a strategic point of view, whether Microsoft has the ability to integrate is a problem. Therefore, tiktok may also become a second leader. ” < / P > < p > in addition, whether it’s a good idea for social apps to sell a market alone remains to be tested. Fang Xingdong believes that “social media is a global application software. If Microsoft just acquires the U.S. business, there will be a sense of fragmentation in content production. According to the general rule, if Microsoft acquires tiktok’s U.S. business, it may not be able to enter other markets for two or three years. From the perspective of social software development, an application can not continue to grow and will soon decline. ” At the same time, the probability of successful acquisition of the whole industry is not high. For example, News Corp. bought MySpace for $580 million in 2005, but sold it again for $35 million in 2011. MySpace’s value fell by 94%. < / P > < p > compared with trading, byte skipping may be a good choice to become an alliance with Microsoft. A management source of byte beat, who did not want to be named, told the first financial reporter that byte skipping abandoned the U.S. market to protect its global business. At present, it is a good choice to sell part of tiktok’s overseas business to Microsoft. This means that tiktok under Microsoft’s leadership will compete with Facebook mainly in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, while tiktok with byte beating will compete with Facebook in Europe, Asia and other places. At present, Microsoft is not good at mobile Internet, and it may not be able to promote the tiktok business under its leadership to the world. At that time, byte skipping will form an alliance relationship with Microsoft, rather than a hostile relationship. < / P > < p > assuming that tiktok’s overseas business can’t be launched, it means that headlines will compete with Tencent more fiercely in the Chinese market. However, whether Microsoft, which lacks entertainment and social genes, can meet the challenge remains to be questioned. However, for Microsoft, if the acquisition opportunity belongs to other competitors, it is bound to be more unfavorable. Therefore, even if there is a risk, Microsoft will choose to take risks.