EU: Salesforce challenges Microsoft’s data acquisition

The European Commission has mentioned that it may start requiring all data-rich merger to seek approval rather than continuing with current guidelines which require approval only for mergers where the annual turnover of the combined businesses exceeds specified thresholds.

One current deal that seems to be spurring these considerations is the acquisition of the online careers site LinkedIn by Microsoft.

Salesforce, a leading opponent of the deal, is also suggesting to regulators that Microsoft will create proprietary bundles of its services and LinkedIn data.

Data in all forms seems valuable right now, because rich and varied data is at the core of machine learning and artificial intelligence, the basis for analyzing and predicting almost any action that can be digitally measured.

Essentially, the people are proposing judging anti-competitiveness on the basis of something with imputed value, the uses of which aren’t fully understood yet.

Full Content: The New York Times

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