– Microsoft Corp and Walmart Inc are together bidding for TikTok’s U.S. assets, competing with Oracle Corp for a piece of the popular short-video app.
The companies have signed a five-year cloud computing deal, invested to expand into newer regions and collaborated on other projects.
Here is a rundown of Microsoft and Walmart’s past alliances and connections:
2019
** Walmart appointed Suresh Kumar as its chief technology officer. Kumar previously held positions with tech giants such as Alphabet Inc’s Google, Microsoft and Amazon.com Inc.
2018
** The companies signed a five-year cloud computing deal for Walmart to use Microsoft software and its Azure, the biggest competitor to Amazon’s AWS cloud service.
** Under the deal, engineers from both companies are collaborating to migrate a significant portion of walmart.com and samsclub.com to Azure.
** Walmart outbid Amazon to become a majority owner of Indian e-commerce company Flipkart for a hefty price of $16 billion, a year after Microsoft invested in the company. (https://reut.rs/32zzCmM)
2017
** Microsoft, along with China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd and e-commerce company eBay Inc, had participated in Flipkart’s $1.4 billion funding round a year earlier. Microsoft still owns a small stake in Flipkart. (https://reut.rs/31Jfe3F)
2011
** Walmart launched its VUDU entertainment service on Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Earlier this year, the retailer sold the video-on-demand service to Fandango Media, a movie ticketing service owned by cable company Comcast Corp.