Finally, a chance for Oracle to get back in the same sentence as Microsoft. The software pioneer has entered the contest to buy the US operations of TikTok, the hit teen video app. The Trump administration has threatened to shut down the app unless it is quickly sold to a US buyer by its Chinese owners.
Microsoft is the lead bidder racing to get a deal done. With names such as Oracle popping up, the forced sale is achieving a vague semblance of a competitive process.
Rationales for tech giants to buy TikTok are nebulous. Microsoft can at least cobble together an industrial logic argument from its ownership of the Xbox brand and LinkedIn, a workplace social network.