So why does Microsoft want to buy TikTok, a social media service favored by American teens? It could be that the stodgy software giant’s long-awaited…
So why does Microsoft want to buy TikTok, a social media service favored by American teens? It could be that the stodgy software giant’s long-awaited fountain of youth.
Microsoft isn’t exactly tech’s most consumer-friendly company. Just think of the long list of doomed products marooned over the years: Groove Music, Mixer streaming service, the social network Socl, the Windows Phone, the Zune digital music player. But Microsoft aspires to break out of its Windows desktop, suit-and-tie, 9-5 image to capture more of the consumer market. Early on in 2007, it saw the potential for social media, investing $240 million in Facebook at a $15-billion valuation and even offering to buy Mark Zuckerberg’s company outright.
A TikTok acquisition would deliver something that has eluded the software giant for years: a major platform to rival Facebook and Google-owned YouTube. And it could remake its image with young people.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, is quickly emerging as a potent competitor to Snapchat, Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, says eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson.
“Getting TikTok would give it another chance to get in on a fast-growing, youth-oriented social media property and be a way to try to get back at Facebook for spurning its advances,» Williamson said in a statement.
Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives agrees.
«This would be a major foray into the social media space which has been long overdue for Microsoft over the last decade,» he said.
A TikTok acquisition would be a «crown jewel» snapped up at a discount, «an asset with 100 million users, massive momentum, engagement, advertising revenue and something they could cross-sell into the broader Microsoft base,» Ives said.
Perhaps the biggest prize of all? Vast amounts of data about TikTok users.
That data could be used by Microsoft in building software and hardware projects, and not just Xbox. For the first time, it would have deep insight into consumer behavior and a real hook into young people who are being taught on Chromebooks and other Google products in classrooms and scrolling through Snapchat and Facebook-owned Instagram in their spare time.
Protection of that data is Microsoft’s biggest selling point to the Trump administration which is concerned about TikTok’s ties to the Chinese government.
TikTok, which is currently owned by a Chinese company, has come under scrutiny and investigation in the U. S. over allegations it is supplying user data to Beijing, a charge that company officials have denied.
“Microsoft would ensure that all private data of TikTok’s American users is transferred to and remains in the United States,” Microsoft said.
President Donald Trump’s threat to issue an executive order to ban TikTok in the U. S. follows another from last year that, due to national security concerns, effectively banned Chinese telecom giant Huawei.
TikTok represents not just a risk of data privacy Chinese surveillance, «but also a direct challenge to U. S. technological dominance,” said Michael Priem, founder and CEO at Modern Impact, an advertising technology firm Minneapolis. “TikTok has become the fastest-growth social platform in history and its inception as a Chinese technology threatens the U.
