Oracle has confirmed that it has a deal with TikTok. In an announcement referring to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Oracle said on Monday:
"Oracle confirms Secretary Mnuchin's statement that it is part of the proposal submitted by ByteDance to the Treasury Department over the weekend in which Oracle will serve as the trusted technology provider. Oracle has a 40-year track record providing secure, highly performant technology solutions."
Walmart and Microsoft were also competing for a relationship with the Chinese video-sharing social networking service owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-based company.
The competition to work with TikTok was prompted by concerns about national security expressed by the Trump administration which told ByteDance in August that it would have to sell TikTok's U.S. operations to an American company or stop U.S. operations.
In a Sunday blog post, Microsoft announced it was out of the running, stating:
"ByteDance let us know today they would not be selling TikTok’s US operations to Microsoft. We are confident our proposal would have been good for TikTok’s users, while protecting national security interests. To do this, we would have made significant changes to ensure the service met the highest standards for security, privacy, online safety, and combatting disinformation, and we made these principles clear in our August statement. We look forward to seeing how the service evolves in these important areas."
Details of the proposed arrangement between Oracle andTikTok have not been made public by the companies.
The agreement between Oracle and TikTok will position Oracle as TikTok's “trusted technology partner” in the U.S., and is not expected to be structured as an actual sale.
According to industry reports, the value to Oracle of this deal—which will need to be reviewed by the Treasury Department—is that, in addition to possible arrangements such as being paid for its services or taking a minority stake, it could potentially allow Oracle to demonstrate the trustworthiness, durability, and elasticity of its cloud services, while giving the company's cloud infrastructure broader recognition beyond the enterprise technology sphere.
In another high-profile cloud win, Oracle also announced in April that video communications leader Zoom was turning to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure to support its growth and evolving business needs. “We chose Oracle Cloud Infrastructure because of its industry-leading security, outstanding performance, and unmatched level of support," said Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan at the time.
"Video communications has become an essential part of our professional and personal lives, and Zoom has led this industry’s innovation,” said Oracle CEO Safra Catz, commenting on that deal. “We are proud to work with Zoom, as both their cloud infrastructure provider and as a customer, while they grow and continue to connect businesses, people, and governments around the world.”
For more information about Oracle, go to www.oracle.com.