report by the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft and Orange are discussing the details of a deal that would see the former investing in Dailymotion, thereby helping the website expand and grow. Orange CEO Stephane Richard confirmed in an interview with French television channel BFM TV and said that the company is currently negotiating things with Redmond — though no decision has yet been made regarding Dailymotion from their side. No idea what role Microsoft will play in the expansion of Dailymotion if the deal goes through, but there is a chance that Orange would keep majority stake in the video service. Microsoft, then, would only provide the funds and the technology needed for growth. Nevertheless, this is not the first time Redmond has shown interest in Dailymotion. According to older reports, the company previously negotiated a potential takeover in order to help compete against Google and the juggernaut known as YouTube. And with the recent plan of transitioning into a devices and services company, there is every chance that we have not heard the end of this (potentially) interesting affair.]]>
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I don’t know what is taking them so long to jump into video. Mobile devices and search are one thing, but video streaming is something that people would jump on almost instantly. Of course they need to come up with their own video service with a great, catchy name.
Microsoft has so many things they need to get behind them, I just think it would be easier for them to partner in this case and focus on improving their current assets that would be leveraged by Dailymotion. For Dailymotion, they probably want access to Azure resources to reduce expenses, promoted on platforms like XBox, Windows/Phone, and even Microsoft api/tools. Besides sign in support for Microsoft Accounts and leveraging Bing, one of the integration points I’d like to see is the ability to surface your OneDrive videos on your Dailymotion user account/channel.
Competition for Google’s YouTube would be welcome, as that is what I believe it will eventually become…if the deal goes through.
I remember thinking to myself a couple of months ago why MS hasn’t scooped up this service. Though not enough competition for YouTube stil it’s a good start.
They’d need to optimize on the compression quality of the video, though, to compete. Most YouTube videos are fuzzy and blurry, and that’s because Google is using quick and dirty compression algorithms.
Can’t blame them too much, what with the insane amount of users.