Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google—these tech giants have tended to attract the majority of antitrust scrutiny in recent months. Microsoft, in contrast, has largely—though not entirely—evaded the regulatory glare, as I noted Wednesday, right after the company notched a record $2 trillion market cap, a distinction shared only by Apple.
Microsoft is taking advantage of that relative cover to knock rivals. During his keynote address at Microsoft’s Windows 11 software unveiling on Thursday, CEO Satya Nadella used the opportunity to take a not-so veiled jab at Apple. “Today the world needs a more open platform, one that allows apps to become platforms in their own right,” he told the audience, calling Microsoft’s new operating system a “platform for platform creators.”
Microsoft’s emphasis on being “open” is a direct rebuttal of Apple’s comparatively “closed” stance. Apple just finished defending itself in courtroom hearings at an antitrust-related trial brought by Fortnite-maker Epic Games last month. At issue were Apple’s app store policies, which enforce onerous strictures on app developers, like preventing them from using their own payment methods and demanding steep cuts of transactions. Countering Apple, Microsoft’s chief product officer, Panos Panay, noted at the Windows event that “we keep zero” in fees.
It’s easy for Microsoft to present itself as so magnanimous. The Windows app store pales in comparison to the dynamism of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android app stores, and Microsoft hopes to make it a more compelling hub for developers. As The Verge’s Dieter Bohn observes, “It’s a truism that, in tech, the underdog always calls for openness until they’re the top dog.” (See: Amazon’s marketplace, Google’s search engine, etc.)
While Microsoft declares itself beneficent, competitors detect only hypocrisy. As part of the features announced at Thursday’s event, Microsoft said it would bundle Teams, its chat software, into Windows 11. Salesforce’s Slack was indignant; the chat app-maker turned Nadella’s own words against him: “Our reaction is simple: choice is better than lock-in, open is better than closed, and fair competition is best of all,” Slack said in a statement. “Unfortunately, Microsoft has never seen it that way.”
That “never” is doing some work. Slack is dredging up Microsoft’s monopolistic past. The decision to pre-install Teams recalls Microsoft’s decision to bundle its Internet Explorer web browser into earlier versions of Windows, a move that helped bring on a major antitrust action against the company in the ’90s. (Slack filed an antitrust complaint against Microsoft in the E.U. last year, alleging that Microsoft’s pre-loading Teams in its Office software suite was anticompetitive.)
Microsoft is talking a big game about being “open” right now. But, like any tech company, it closes up when convenient.
Robert Hackett
NEWSWORTHY
"C" is for cookie. Google is delaying its phaseout of the Chrome web browser's support for third-party cookies by two years. People expect the move to cause a major shake-up in digital advertising when it takes place in late 2023, since the business models of many ad-tech firms and online publishers rely on cookies for user-tracking. Google originally said it would put the plan into effect later this year. "We need to move at a responsible pace" wrote Vinay Goel, Chrome's privacy engineering chief, explaining the delay in a blog post.
Take the next exit. China’s largest ride-hailing firm, Didi Global, is seeking to raise $4 billion at a $67 billion valuation when it goes public on the New York Stock Exchange this year. The IPO looks set to be the largest ever public listing by a Chinese company in the U.S. Softbank, Uber, and Tencent are the company's biggest backers, holding a combined 40% stake.
Sharif (of Nottingham) don't like it. While Didi prepares for its big debut, Robinhood's plans have been hampered. The stock-trading app was originally intending to go public as soon as this summer, but questions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are holding up the process. The stock-cops apparently have questions about Robinhood's fast-growing cryptocurrency business.
Burning the Wickr at both ends. Amazon has scooped up the encrypted messaging app Wickr for an undisclosed sum. Analysts suspect this might mean the cloud giant is planning to boost its chat services. Amazon's existing product, Chime, is unpopular compared to competitors like Salesforce's Slack. Meanwhile, Amazon Music acquired Art19, a podcast hosting service, for an undisclosed sum. Take that Spotify.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Peter Thiel and other billionaires are tax-dodging masterminds. The contrarian venture capitalist and PayPal cofounder has reportedly been using a Roth IRA retirement account to make tax-sidestepping startup investments for decades. ProPublica investigated the methods employed by Thiel and others, such as Warren Buffett and hedge funder Robert Mercer, after receiving "a trove of IRS tax return data on thousands of the country’s wealthiest people," it said.
The headline—"Lord of the Roths," describing a Tolkien-loving Thiel—is, by the way, brilliant.
Over the last 20 years, Thiel has quietly turned his Roth IRA — a humdrum retirement vehicle intended to spur Americans to save for their golden years — into a gargantuan tax-exempt piggy bank, confidential Internal Revenue Service data shows. Using stock deals unavailable to most people, Thiel has taken a retirement account worth less than $2,000 in 1999 and spun it into a $5 billion windfall.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Your order is on its way—analysts back Just Eat Takeaway after buying spree by Sophie Mellor
An infrastructure deal looks likely, and that’s good news for these stocks by Bernhard Warner
Crypto firms struggle to find talent as they offer hundreds of job opportunities by Kwan Wei, Kevin Tan, Joanna Ossinger, and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen
Moonshot thinking drove innovation during the pandemic in surprising ways by Stephanie Cain
Will the Fed embrace a de facto digital dollar? by Robert Hackett
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BEFORE YOU GO
El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has promised to airdrop $30 worth of Bitcoin to all citizens who download the country's forthcoming digital wallet app, Chivo. ("Chivo" means "cool" there.) The small Central American state recently passed a law that recognizes the cryptocurrency as legal tender starting on Sept. 7th. Bukele used a PowerPoint to explain how crypto-remittances work to the entire populace.
It was a stimmy-ulating presentation.
